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DUKE  UNIVERSITY 

LIBRARY 


The  Glenn  Negley  Collection 
of  Utopian  Literature 


THIS  FIRST  EDITION  ON  SMALL 
PAPER  IS  LIMITED  TO  FIVE 
HUNDRED     COPIES 


THE    BUILDING 

OF 

THE    CITY   BEAUTIFUL 

By  JOAQUIN    MILLER 


CAMBRIDGE   &  CHICAGO 

PUBLISHED   BY  STONE   & 
KIMBALL    IN    THE    YEAR 


MDCCCXCIII 


CorV«ICHTED     189J 

bv     C     H.    MlLLKM 


f 


TO 


LILLIE    H.    COIT. 


mg4?:b 


351938 


CONTENTS. 


Page 

I.    An  Old  Woman  with  a  Load 

OF  Wood i 

II.    "Feed  my  Sheep" 12 

III.  "  The  Time  is  fulfilled,  and 

THE  Kingdom  of  God  is  at 
Hand"     

IV.  The  Growing  of  a  Soul  . 
V.    How  Beautiful  !     .    .    .    . 

VI.  The  Sermon  on  the  Mount 

VII.  In  the  Sweat  of  thy  Face 

VIII.  The  Christ  in  Egypt     .    . 

IX.  Awaiting  the  Resurrection 

at  Karnak  

X.  The  Voice  of  Toil     .    .    . 

XI.  The  Foundation  Stones    . 

XII.  The  First  Law  of  God     . 

XIII.  Fallen  by  the  Way  .    .    . 

XIV.  Under  the  Olive-Trees     . 
XV.  As   when  the   Christ  shall 

COME   AGAIN 


21 

30 

37 

42 

48 
52 

56 

66 

73 
85 
94 

102 


114 
XVI.  120 


351938 


IV 


XVII.     In  Her  Presence  at  last.    .  127 
XVIII.    Give  us  this   Day  our  daily 

liREAD 141 

XIX.    The  Toil  of  God 153 

XX.    When  Man  is  not  Watching 

Man 162 

XXI.  167 

XXII.    The  truly  Brave 173 

XXIII.  Going  ...  .182 

XXIV.  Put  up  thy  Sword              .    .  187 


THE  BUILDING  OF  THE 
CITY  BEAUTIFUL. 


^ 


I. —  AN  OLD  WOMAN  WITH  A 
LOAD    OF    WOOD. 

"  Now  he  is  dead.     Far  hence  he  lies 
In  that  lorn  Syrian  town  ; 
And  o'er  his  grave  with  pitying  eyes 
The  Syrian  stars  look  down." 

"  How  hardly  shall  they  that  have 
riches  enter  the  kingdom  of  God.  It  is 
easier  for  a  camel  to  go  through  the  eye 
of  a  needle  than  for  a  rich  man  to  enter 
the  kingdom  of  God." 

Sir  MOSES  MONTIFIORE,  of  the 
house  of  Rothschilds,  and  one  of  the  very 
rich  men  in  all  the  world,  was  in  Jerusalem. 
It  was  his  last  of  more  than  a  score  of  pil- 
grimages to  the  Holy  City. 

He  had  founded  little  colonies  near  Beth- 
lehem and  in  many  places  round  about  Jeru- 
salem. True,  he  was  very  old  now ;  but  this 
remarkable  man,  who  lived  for  more  than  a 
century,  was  still  full  of  purpose. 


His  last  coming  had  created  quite  a  sensa- 
tion among  the  Jews  as  a  matter  of  course. 
The  great  hospital  hard  by,  the  burial-ground, 
the  synagogue, —  all  these  were  his  gifts  to 
the  Jewish  people,  and  they  were  not  un- 
grateful. 

As  for  the  Christians,  they  were  scarcely 
less  eager  to  see  the  very  rich  old  man.  Bibles 
were  opened,  and  the  lines  at  the  head  of 
this  chapter  were  read  over  and  over  again. 

The  man's  great  age  now  compelled  him 
to  leave  the  direction  of  his  work  almost 
entirely  to  others.  Still  he  must  know  all 
that  had  been  done  in  his  long  absence  in 
London.  He  wanted  to  know  just  how  the 
little  colonies  were  getting  on.  Were  the 
people  from  Poland  content  ?  Were  the 
peasant  Jews  from  Russia  united  and  toler- 
ant of  their  less  stalwart  brothers  ?  Strange 
how  much  stronger  were  those  of  the  ex- 
treme North  than  those  who  had  been  for 
generations  in  Jerusalem  and  other  warm 
lands ! 

There  were  Jews  returning  to  Jerusalem 
from  the  banks  of  the  Volga  after  an  absence 
of  a  thousand  years !  and  these  were  strong 
men.  They  had  crept  out  from  under  the 
snows  of  Russia  and  come  down  to  the  city 
of  David  with  hair  almost  yellow  and  eyes 


—  3  — 

4 

as  blue  as  their  sacred  Syrian  skies.  Their 
expulsion  from  Jerusalem  had  surely  done 
them  good. 

The  Jews  of  all  kinds  and  of  all  countries 
who  had  been  established  in  their  new  homes 
by  Sir  Moses  came  pouring  in  through  the 
various  gates  and  passes  on  this  day  of  his 
arrival. 

And  a  little  crowd  of  Christians,  after  read- 
ing over  and  over  again  the  words  of  Christ 
to  the  ruler  who  was  very  rich,  went  down  to 
a  narrow  pass  leading  to  the  dirty  and  dis- 
mal market  in  the  valley  of  Jehoshaphat. 

Peasants  were  crowding  through  the  nar- 
row pass,  about  which  so  much  has  been  said 
and  written,  and  about  which  really  nothing, 
so  far  as  the  words  of  Christ  are  con- 
cerned, is  known.  And  a  tall,  dark  woman 
stood  there,  looking  at  the  crowding  peas- 
ants, —  a  young  and  strangely  'beautiful 
woman,  silent,  serene,  dignified,  and  com- 
manding. 

Some  of  the  people  had  heavy  loads  on 
their  backs;  one  had  a  lamb,  one  carried 
only  a  dove.  They  were  all  on  their  way  to 
market.  They  then  would  go  and  see  Sir 
Moses,  and  possibly  be  able  to  beg  some 
money. 

How   they   did   jostle    and   wrangle,  and 


—  4  — 

abuse  and  bully  one  another !  The  man 
with  only  a  dove  to  carry  would  not  give  an 
inch  of  road  or  room  to  an  old  woman  who 
was  bowed  almost  to  the  ground  under  a 
load  of  sticks. 

It  was  altogether  a  sad  picture,  and  the 
serenely  beautiful  face  of  the  silent  woman, 
who  stood  there  on  the  edge  of  the  group  of 
garrulous  tourists,  grew  sad  at  the  sight 
of  it. 

Time,  then,  taught  nothing.  Each  was 
for  himself  as  of  old.  No  pity,  no  sympathy, 
no  sincerity !  They  were  all  mad,  in  haste 
to  have  done  with  their  marketing  so  that 
they  might  run  to  where  Sir  Moses  lodged 
and  be  the  first  to  beg  a  little  money. 

But  this  tall,  dark  woman  on  the  outside 
of  the  group  of  Christians  was  very  patient. 
The  dust  of  travel  was  still  on  her  sable  gar- 
ments. She  was  seeking  in  vain  for  some 
gentle  soul  in  that  multitude  of  loud,  aggres- 
sive, and  half-savage  Jews. 

After  the  peasants  had  all  crowded 
through  and  left  the  "  Needle's  Eye "  to 
the  inspection  of  the  group  of  Christians, 
she  turned  with  a  sigh  to  go  away. 

Suddenly  some  one  in  the  knot  of  people 
who  held  red  guide-books  in  their  hands, 
said  emphatically  and  right  in  her  face : 


"  That  settles  it  for  the  rich  man,  I  guess. 
Sir  Moses  ought  to  put  his  money  on  a 
camel's  back  and  see  if  it  could  get  through 
the  Eye  of  the  Needle,  eh  ?  " 

There  is  an  intoxication  not  always  of  the 
wine  glass.  Men  and  women  say  things  and 
do  things  in  foreign  places,  especially  when 
in  crowds,  which  they  would  not  say  and  do 
if  alone  and  at  home.  Set  a  guard  at  the 
portals ;  and  if  you  cannot  keep  sober,  you 
can  at  least  keep  silent.  Every  one  at  cer- 
tain times  and  in  certain  places  is  entitled  to 
his  own  thoughts.  They  are  his  property 
more  entirely  than  his  own  money  is  his. 
He  has  journeyed  far  to  meditate  here.  This 
rare  moment  has  cost  him  much.  And  yet 
he  oftentimes  hears  only  a  rushing  of  feet 
over  sacred  ground,  and  a  Babel  of  voices 
in  solemn  abbey  and  sublime  cathedral.  At 
such  times  one  thanks  God  that  man  is  so 
very  insignificant  that  he  may  not  be  heard 
far. 

The  tall,  dark  lady  did  not  reply.  She 
preferred  to  pass  on  and  seem  not  to  hear. 
The  better  portion  of  the  crowd  of  tourists 
were  angered ;  but  as  two  or  three  laughed 
their  assent  the  man  repeated  his  remark  to 
the  silent  woman,  thinking,  perhaps,  that  she 
did  not  understand  Enghsh. 


—  6  — 

This  young  woman  —  was  she  a  Jewess  ? 
—  was  travelling  with  Sir  Moses  Montifiore, 
as  secretar)-,  or  something  of  the  sort.  The 
remarkable  philanthropist,  as  said  before, 
was  making  the  last  of  more  than  a  score  of 
pilgrimages  to  the  city  of  David.  He  had 
spent  millions  on  millions  in  his  noble  effort 
to  re-people  Palestine. 

As  you  go  up  toward  Jerusalem  from  the 
sea  you  pass  by  pleasant  little  settlements, 
new  and  fair  and  verdant  as  if  in  Idaho. 
Indeed,  nearly  all  of  the  land  of  Syria  seems 
much  like  the  varied  plains  that  stretch  from 
the  slopes  of  Idaho  southward  to  the  sea  of 
Cortez,  —  cattle  and  sheep  and  horses,  little 
fields  of  grain,  orchards,  thrift  and  industry, 
in  spots,  as  on  our  plains  to-day. 

It  was  mainly  to  look  after  these,  and  to 
add  to  them  with  those  of  his  people  who 
were  being  driven  out  of  Russia,  that  the  old 
Israelite  had  resolved  to  come  once  more 
all  the  way  from  London  at  his  advanced 
age. 

And  it  was  the  good  fortune  of  his  coming 
that  caused  a  new  man  of  the  new  world  and 
this  wondrously  beautiful  and  strong  and 
strange  woman  of  the  old  world  to  meet  to- 
gether at  the  Eye  of  the  Xeedle.  Let  us  not 
recount  the  details  of  their  meeting.     Strong 


—  7  — 

souls  meet  suddenly,  as  rivers  meet  when 
rushing  to  the  same  great  sea. 

"  Yes,  that  gate  settles  the  fate  of  the  rich 
man,"  added  one  of  the  crowd.  The  new 
man  of  the  new  world  was  indignant. 

And  now  her  great,  dark  eyes  took  fire. 
Her  brow  grew  dark.  Her  dark  immensity 
of  hair  seemed  to  take  on  a  faint  tinge  of 
fire  about  the  face  and  at  the  tips.  The  new 
man  of  the  new  world  did  not  know  at  this 
time,  nor  did  she  deign  to  tell  any  one,  —  for 
she  was  a  woman  of  few  words,  like  all 
really  great  women,  —  that  she  stood  in  very 
close  relation  to  one  of  the  very  richest  men 
in  the  world. 

Again  she  turned  to  go  in  silence.  The 
man,  who  had  only  half  concealed  his  indig- 
nation at  the  persistence  of  the  garrulous 
tourist,  stepped  forward,  hat  in  hand,  but 
said  nothing.  He  was  not  of  the  group  of 
people  who  had  come,  guide-books  in  hand, 
to  see  the  so-called  Eye  of  the  Needle.  Per- 
haps he  had  seen  all  there  was  to  see  there 
long  before.  You  can  generally  distinguish 
travelled  from  untravelled  people  by  their 
quiet  bearing. 

The  woman  turned  the  third  time  to  pass 
in  silence ;  but  still  she  persisted  in  glancing 
back. 


—  8  — 

Is  it  the  remnant  of  wild  beast  in  us  still 
that  makes  all  hunted  or  wounded  human 
beings  turn  quickly  about  to  give  battle  ? 
But  here  was  a  battle  in  her  own  heart.  She 
was  bursting  with  indignation,  yet  she  had 
trained  her  soul  to  soar  above  resentment. 
So  the  cloud  that  lowered  about  her  glorious 
face  blew  over  as  the  stranger  stood  respect- 
fully before  her.  But  she  did  not  address 
herself  to  him  or  seem  to  note  him  at  all. 
She  was  concerned  only  to  answer  the  man 
who  had  so  persistently  referred  to  the 
fate  of  the  rich  man.  Slowly  and  softly  she 
said :  — 

"  Yes,  I  have  read,  and  I  have  also  heard 
it  from  the  pulpit,  that  it  was  to  this  gate 
that  Jesus  Christ  referred  when  he  spoke  of 
the  rich  man." 

The  tall,  grand  woman  drew  her  loose 
mantle  more  closely  about  her  throat,  and 
lifting  her  eyes  looked  away  toward  the  hill 
on  which  stood  the  camp  of  Titus  when 
Jerusalem  was  overthrown  ;  and  without  in- 
tending it,  or  really  knowing  that  she  did  so, 
she  looked  entirely  above  the  man  before 
her  as  she  went  on  in  an  earnest,  far-away 
voice :  — 

"  Yes,  men  have  published,  and  men  have 
stood  up  and  proclaimed,  that  Jesus  referred 


—  9  — 

to  this  gate  when  he  spoke  of  the  eye  of  the 
needle,  because  it  was  so  extremely  hard  for 
a  camel  to  pass  through  here.  That  is  to 
say,  a  camel  could  pass  through  it  only  with 
great  difficulty."  She  paused,  her  proud  lip 
curled  as  she  continued  :  — 

"  How  pitiful  and  helpless  this  interpreta- 
tion, and  yet  how  simple  and  sublime  the  few 
plain  words  of  Jesus  Christ !  Let  us  read 
them ! "  and  as  if  reading  in  the  air  she 
repeated :  "  How  hardly  shall  they  that  have 
riches  enter  into  the  kingdom  of  God.  It  is 
easier  for  a  camel  to  go  through  the  eye  of 
a  needle  than  for  a  rich  man  to  enter  the 
kingdom  of  God." 

She  paused,  still  looking  far  away;  then 
she  said :  "  That  is  to  say,  it  is  literally 
easier  for  a  camel  to  pass  through  the  eye  of 
a  needle  than  for  a  man  to  pass  into  heaven 
after  death  with  his  riches  on  his  back.  He 
must  lay  aside  his  wealth  at  the  door  of 
death,  and  enter  the  kingdom  of  God  poor  as 
the  poorest." 

She  turned  to  go,  and  then  again  came 
back. 

"  Sir  Moses  Montifiore,"  she  said  gently, 
"is  a  very  rich  man  to-day,  one  of  the 
richest  in  the  world  ;  yet  surely  if  any  rich 
man  enters,  or   ever  has  entered,  the  king- 


lO 


dom  of  God  he  will.  No,  no !  To  say  that 
the  divine  young  Jew,  Jesus,  shut  the  gates 
of  heaven  in  the  face  of  a  man  because  he 
had  riches  on  earth,  would  be  to  say  that  he 
was  not  Christ  at  all.  True,  he  said  to  the 
rich  man,  a  ruler  who  came  to  ask  him  the 
way,  '  Sell  all  that  thou  hast  and  distribute 
unto  the  poor,  and  come  and  follow  me.' 
But  this  must  have  meant  a  literal  follow- 
ing ;  for  soon  he  took  unto  him  the  twelve 
and  said  unto  them,  '  Behold,  we  go  up  to 
Jerusalem,  and  all  things  that  are  written  by 
the  prophets  concerning  the  Son  of  Man 
shall  be  accomplished.' " 

The  crowd  had  melted  away,  all  but  one 
man.  This  man  had  bowed  his  head  as  she 
continued  to  speak.  When  she  ceased,  his 
chin  was  on  his  breast  and  his  hat  was  still 
in  his  hand.  He  knew  he  was  hearing  the 
voice  of  a  soul.  But  who  could  she  be  ? 
She  spoke  English  fluently,  yet  with  an  ac- 
cent. She  had  been  conversing  in  French 
with  a  party  as  he  approached.  There  was 
a  Catholic  priest  in  this  French  party,  and 
was  she  not  a  Jewess  ?  A  Jewess  knowing 
more  of  Christ  than  Christians  ! 

"  All  civilized  peoples,  whether  Jews  or 
Christians,  of  to-day  are  comparatively  rich ; 
and  when  this  world  shall  be  all  civilized  we 


II 


shall  all  be  very  rich.     Yet  shall  we  not  all 
enter  the  kingdom  of  God  ?  " 

These  few  last  words  of  the  dark  and 
silent  woman  were  said  as  if  entirely  to 
herself. 


II.  —  "FEED    MY   SHEEP." 

Come,  let  us  ponder  ;  it  is  fit  — 

Bom  of  the  poor,  born  to  the  poor  — 

The  poor  of  purse,  the  poor  of  wit 

Were  first  to  find  God's  opening  door, 

Were  first  to  climb  the  ladder,  round  by  round, 

That  fell  from  heaven's  door  unto  the  gruund. 

God's  poor  came  first,  the  very  first ! 

God's  poor  were  first  to  see,  to  hear, 
To  feel  the  light  of  heaven  burst 

Full  on  their  faces  far  or  near. 
His  poor  were  first  to  follow,  first  to  fall  I 
Whai  if  at  last  His  poor  stand  first  of  all? 

1  HIS  is  not  entirely  a  love  story.  It  is 
not  a  religious  or  irreligious  story.  It  is  the 
record  of  one,  or  rather  two  persons  who 
believed  that  man  is  not  only  entitled  to 
the  pursuit  of  happiness  but  to  the  attain- 
ment of  happiness,  real  and  substantial, 
upon  earth. 

The  woman,  Miriam,  was  indeed  a  Jew- 
ess, a  Jewess  —  and  it  is  said  with  rever- 
ence—  as  Mar)',  the  mother  of  Christ,  was 
a  Jewess. 

She  was  from  Russia,  or,  more  properly, 
from  Siberia,  where  she  had  spent  her  hard, 
bitter  girlhood  sitting  by  her  broken  and 
exiled  father's  bed.     Death,  his  death,  had 


—  13  — 

liberated  them  both  at  once,  and  she  had 
gone  direct  to  London  and  found  employ- 
ment with  Sir  Moses  in  his  effort  to  amel- 
iorate the  condition  of  his  people. 

Her  trustworthiness,  her  quiet  wisdom  in 
all  matters  intrusted  to  her,  had  soon  placed 
her  in  the  highest  position  and  most  influ- 
ential relations  with  the  great  men  of  her 
race.  But  she  was  growing,  growing  rap- 
idly, and  soon  she  grew  beyond  the  narrow 
limits  of  race  or  creed.  She  came  to 
believe  in  all  good  of  all  religions.  Forms 
and  fashions  she  put  aside,  as  the  cloth 
that  covered  His  face  was  put  aside  on  the 
third  day. 

Miriam  was  a  devout  worshipper  in  the 
synagogue.  She  had  knelt  quite  as  de- 
voutly before  the  Greek  cross  in  the  Krem- 
lin, had  bowed  low  in  the  mosque  of  Omar, 
and  had  crossed  herself  reverently  in  St. 
Peter's ;  for  she  loved  all  peoples,  and  she 
pitied  all  peoples  in  all  their  pitiful  forms 
of  idolatry. 

Her  heart  was  almost  broken  here,  this 
first  morning  of  her  arrival  at  the  city  of 
David  and  Solomon.  For  here,  in  the  very 
dust  and  ashes  of  the  Temple,  she  saw  the 
same  old  hates,  enmities,  jealousies,  narrow- 
ness, and  uncleanliness  of  soul  and  of  body ; 


—  14  — 

narrow  and  unclean  as  the  little  gate 
through  which  her  people  crowded. 

What  had  two  thousand  years  done  for 
God's  people  ?  They  had  not  been  borne 
forward  at  all.  The  world,  Pagan,  Chris- 
tian, Jew,  under  the  old  system  of  selfish 
money-getting,  place  and  power  seeking, 
was  still  the  same.  The  old  order  of  things 
had  been  on  trial,  in  all  climes  and  under 
all  conditions,  for  years  and  years,  and  what 
was  the  result .''  Sorrow,  suicide,  despair. 
Man  stood  staring  on  before  him,  even  in 
the  most  civilized  places  and  under  the  most 
favorable  conditions,  and  kept  asking,  ask- 
ing, "  Is  life  worth  living  ?  " 

"  God  in  heaven  !  "  she  cried ;  "  with  all 
this  glory  of  sky  and  earth,  the  sweet  air, 
the  flowers  and  birds,  our  boundless  capac- 
ity for  enjoyment,  shall  the  world  still  be 
joyless.-*  Why,  every  breath,  even  to  the 
most  wretched,  should  be  to  him  as  a  bene- 
diction. Yes,"  she  continued  very  seriously, 
"  this  old  order  of  things  has  been  on  trial 
long  enough  ;  and  if  we  could  and  should 
restore  Jerusalem  to-day  in  all  her  ancient 
splendor,  what  then  ?  Why,  some  new 
Rome  would  rise  to  encompass  her.  There 
would  be  born  within  her  walls  another 
Simon  and  another  John,  with  all  their  burn- 


—  15  — 

ing  hates  and  jealousies ;  and  the  streets 
would  run  with  blood  the  same  as  two 
thousand  years  ago.  Then  why  restore  her? 
Men  would  stand  on  the  Temple's  porch,  as 
in  the  high  places  of  London  and  Paris 
to-day,  and  gravely  ask,  '  Is  life  worth 
living?'" 

The  man,  with  his  hat  in  his  hand  and  his 
head  bowed,  was  again  before  her.  He  lifted 
his  face  slowly  to  hers. 

"  You  were  pained  at  what  those  tourists 
said?" 

"  Those  tourists  ?  I  had  forgotten  them. 
But  I  was  greatly  pained  to  see  these  poor 
people  with  their  burthens,  great  or  small, 
crowding  in  such  rude  competition  to  the 
market." 

" '  Competition  is  the  life  of  trade,' "  he 
said  lightly ;  not  that  he  felt  that  there  was 
any  truth  or  any  good  of  any  sort  in  this  old 
saw,  but  he  said  it  as  all  of  us  who  have  not 
considered  the  sanctity  of  speech  will  say 
silly  things.  Ah,  how  much  wiser  we  should 
all  be  were  we  dumb  as  beasts,  or,  at  least, 
as  silent ! 

In  a  moment  the  flashing  of  her  dark  eyes 
told  him  he  had  not  said  quite  what  he  should 
have  said. 

"  '  Competition   the   life  of   trade  ! ' "  she 


—  i6  — 

began,  as  if  to  herself.  "  These  old  sayings 
are  more  than  millstones  about  the  neck  of 
this  world.  Trade  !  what  is  trade  ?  No  won- 
der that  the  English  gentlemen  centuries 
ago  forbade  those  in  trade  to  sit  at  their 
tables  or  to  come  into  the  presence  of  their 
king.  Not  one  of  the  million  tradesmen 
ever  grew  one  grain  of  corn,  or  fed  so  much 
as  one  little  bird.  They  battle  to  the  death 
among  themselves  in  this  competition  of 
trade  ;  ninety  in  every  hundred  fall  on  this 
field  of  competition;  they  sacrifice  time, 
truth,  honor,  energy,  life  itself,  in  competi- 
tion for  the  robbery  of  the  people.  This 
very  competition  makes  them  hard,  heart- 
less to  one  another.  They  should,  in  very 
defence  of  themselves,  be  forbidden  this 
fatal  competition,  destroying  their  souls  and 
their  bodies  together." 

The  man  caught  in  his  breath.  He  raised 
his  two  hands,  came  up  and  threw  both  out 
to  her  heartily.  She  did  not  misunderstand. 
She  grasped  his  two  hands  as  earnestly  as 
he  extended  them.  The  world  is  round,  and 
he  came  into  her  life  as  a  stately  ship  enters 
a  harbor  after  circling  the  earth. 

Who  was  he?  It  hardly  matters.  The 
future  of  our  story  and  of  this  man  is  not 
behind  us.     Enough  to  say  that  he  had  been 


—  17  — 

born  near  the  banks  of  a  great  river  in  the 
far-away  new  world,  nearly  half  a  century 
before.  And  this  meant  that  he  had  met 
and  walked  with  poverty  and  woe  in  the 
wilderness. 

Faint  and  dubious  was  the  light  that  fell 
across  the  path  of  any  one  born  of  his  period 
and  station  there.  Gentleness  was  not  en- 
couraged. Man  grappled  with  man  and  con- 
tended from  the  time  when  he  left  the  cradle 
till  he  reached  the  grave.  Cabin  homes 
under  the  beech  and  maple  trees,  that  ought 
to  have  been  Edens,  were  often  homes  of 
enmity,  bitterness,  and  continual  unhappi- 
ness.  Neighbor  was  often  arrayed  against 
neighbor.  Bitter  family  feuds  grew  out  of 
the  most  trivial  of  matters,  and  the  nearest 
neighbors  were  often  the  bitterest  enemies. 
True,  they  would  meet  now  and  then  at  the 
little  church,  but  would  scarcely  speak  one 
to  another.  They  would  meet  sometimes 
in  the  graveyard,  drop  tears  in  the  grave  to- 
gether, as  they  covered  up  their  dead,  and 
then  go  away.  Let  the  truth  be  told.  Let 
romance  picture  no  road  of  roses  here.  All 
men  were  unhappy,  miserably  unhappy  here. 
Their  feuds  often  ended  in  battles  to  the 
death,  as  in  Kentucky  to  this  day. 

And  was  this  the  fault  of  the  good  God  ? 


Not  so.  Plenty  there  was,  abundance  after 
its  kind,  for  all.  Wild  game,  wild  fruits, 
wild  nuts,  and  in  abundance,  and  to  be  had 
for  the  taking  !  and  yet  man  oftentimes  went 
hunting  for  man  as  for  a  wild  beast.  This 
wretched  hatred  of  man  toward  man,  this 
continual  unhappiness,  was  so  conspicuous 
on  every  hand  that  this  man,  even  in  his 
childhood,  had  noted  it. 

When  travel  came  with  time,  and  carried 
him  far  and  wide  and  up  from  the  cabin 
door  to  the  castle  hall,  all  the  way,  and  at 
all  times,  and  under  all  circumstances  and 
all  conditions,  he  found  his  fellow-men  con- 
tinually unhappy.  The  king  on  his  throne 
he  found  as  full  of  rivalry  and  contention  as 
the  pioneer  in  his  cabin. 

And  he  found  that  all  history,  sacred  and 
profane,  rose  up  and  testified,  from  King 
David  down,  that  "  all  is  vanity  and  vexa- 
tion of  spirit." 

And  he  read  that  one  mighty  in  power 
and  opulence  had  cut  upon  a  column  of 
granite  in  the  four  corners  of  his  kingdom, 
ages  ago,  this  fearful  confession :  "  Eat, 
drink,  and  love.  The  rest  is  not  worth  a 
fillip." 

Travelling  in  Persia,  our  searcher  for  happy 
people  had  picked  up  a  tradition  which  read 


—  19  — 

thus:  "Send  forth,  O  King!  search  and 
find  a  happy  man.  Take  that  man's  shirt 
and  wear  it,  and  thou,  too,  shalt  be  happy." 

And  the  king  sent  forth  men,  and  they 
searched,  and  they  searched  throughout  the 
four  corners  of  his  kingdom.  And  in  the 
third  year,  as  they  came  down  a  pleasant 
mountain  pass  where  water  flowed  by  the 
mouth  of  a  cave  half  hidden  in  laden  vines, 
they  saw  a  man  playing  joyously  on  his  pipe. 

"  You  seem  happy !  " 

"  Happy  !  I  am  happy.  The  sun  is  warm, 
the  grapes  are  sweet,  and  God  is  good.  Oh, 
yes,  I  am  very,  very  happy." 

"  Then  come,  come  with  us.  Your  for- 
tune is  made,  our  fortunes  are  made !  Come, 
rise  up  and  go  with  us." 

"  And  where  shall  I  go,  my  good  masters  ?  " 

"  Why,  go  with  us  to  the  palace  of  the 
king,  and  the  king  will  give  you  the  fortune 
of  a  prince." 

"  And  what  shall  I  give  the  king  in  return 
for  all  this,  my  good  masters  ?  " 

"  Nothing,  nothing  at  all  except  the  shirt 
you  wear." 

"  Ah,  my  good  masters,  I  was  never  both- 
ered with  a  shirt." 

So  saying,  he  threw  aside  the  sheepskin 
that  hung  about  his  shoulders,  and  dropping 


20 

his  lips  to  his  pipe,  played  pleasantly  as  the 
wean'  men  on  their  weary  camels  rode 
wearily  on  in  this  hopeless  search. 

Yes,  here  was  a  happy  man,  but  of  what 
manner?  He  was  not  a  man  in  the  true 
sense  of  the  word.  He  was  more  nearly  a 
domestic  and  kindly  beast.  His  negative 
happiness  was  surely  not  the  sort  of  happi- 
ness to  which  man  made  in  the  image  of 
God  was  destined. 

Should  a  bestial  king  perpetuate  to  all 
posterity  the  outrageous  declaration  on  his 
columns  of  granite  and  brass  that  there  is 
nothing  better  in  life  than  to  "  eat,  drink, 
and  be  merrj' "  ? 

Even  were  there  a  grain  of  truth  in  his 
folly,  any  man  with  a  heart  in  him  would  be 
made  miserable  all  the  time  when  sober 
enough  to  reflect  how  many,  or  rather  how 
few,  how  very,  very  few  could,  under  such  a 
condition  of  things,  be  allowed  to  "  eat, 
drink,  and  love." 

What  wonder,  then,  that  this  stranger 
threw  out  his  two  hands  to  this  brave  and 
beautiful  woman  who  stood  there  on  the 
ruins  of  Solomon's  Temple,  lamenting  the 
enmities  and  hates  and  common  misery  of 
the  human  race  ! 


III. —  ''THE  TIME  IS  FULFILLED, 
AND  THE  KINGDOM  OF  GOD  IS 
AT  HAND." 

UNDER  THE   SYRIAN   STARS. 

Dear  Bethlehem,  the  proud  repose 

Of  conscious  worthiness  is  thine. 
Rest  on.     The  Arab  comes  and  goes, 

But  farthest  Saxon  holds  thy  shrine 
More  sacred  in  his  stouter  Christian  hold 
Than  England's  heaped-up  iron  house  of  gold. 

Thy  stony  hill  is  heaven's  stair ; 

Thine  every  stone  some  storied  gem. 
Oh,  thou  art  fair  and  very  fair. 

Thou  holy,  holy  Bethlehem  ! 
Thy  very  dust  more  dear  than  dust  of  gold 
Against  my  glorious  sunset  waters  rolled. 

And  here  did  glean  the  lowly  Ruth  ; 

Here  strode  her  grandson,  fierce  and  fair, 
Strode  forth  in  all  his  kingly  youth 

And  tore  the  ravening  she-bear. 
Here  Rachel  sleeps.    Here  David,  thirsting,  cried 
For  just  one  drop  from  yonder  trickling  tide. 


o 


NE  night  this  man  and  woman  walked 
together  in  the  Garden  of  Gethsemane  under 
the  Syrian  stars,  and  she  said,  in  the  same 
sad,  far-away  voice  :  — 

"  That  strong  man  who  carried  the  dove 
should  have  carried  the  old  woman's  wood. 


22 


She  should  have  remained  at  home,  or,  if 
she  desired,  should  have  been  carried  in  a 
cart,  sitting  on  her  burthen  and  resting  from 
the  gathering  of  it,  looking  about  her  at  the 
flowers  and  the  birds,  or  above  her  at  these 
wondrously  beautiful  blue  skies  of  Syria." 

"  That  is  a  great  truth,"  he  cried ;  "  and  I 
would  joy  in  being  a  missionary  in  the  cause 
of  that  truth ;  but  what  are  we  to  do  when 
every  man,  from  the  throne  down,  must  have 
his  own  selfish  way,  except  when  forced  to 
submit?" 

He  leaned  his  head  to  hear  what  she  mi^ijht 
say.  Possibly  her  thought  was  in  line  with 
his  own  plan  for  the  redemption  of  man  from 
man.  As  they  passed  on  under  an  ancient 
olive  tree  she  began  slowly  :  — 

*'  Let  us  be  very  practical.  The  salvation 
of  the  world  now  depends  on  a  little  hard, 
sound  sense  only.  It  has  been  going  around 
and  around  and  around,  like  a  little  whirling, 
merrj'-goround  with  helpless  and  heedless 
children,  till  its  head  has  grown  dizzy.  We 
have  costly  churches  here  and  costly  cathe- 
drals there,  of  every  nation  and  of  every 
name ;  enough  to  buy  horses,  ploughs,  car- 
riages, —  all  things  needed  for  all  who  need 
them.  We  claim  to  build  those  temples  for 
the  people;   yet  the  people  are   broken   in 


—  23  — 

body  and  in  spirit.  Some  of  them  will  sleep 
in  the  streets  and  alleys  to-night,  while  every 
church  and  temple  stands  empty  and  bolted 
against  God's  poor.  The  rich  must  have  a 
place  where  they  can  come  and  find  God 
now  and  then ;  and  so  God's  houses  are  all 
bolted  and  barred,  while  God's  poor  sleep  in 
the  rain  and  frost  before  the  bolted  doors." 

The  man  looked  away  from  the  Mount  of 
Ohves.  He  began  to  wonder  whether  the 
great,  big  world,  after  its  cruel  fashion,  would 
be  pleased  to  brand  this  woman  as  a  nihilist, 
or  a  communist.     Finally  he  said  :  — 

"  Surely  we  are  in  the  wilderness ;  but  is 
there  any  way  out  ?  " 

"  There  is  a  column  of  cloud  by  day  and  a 
pillar  of  fire  by  night.  Look  back,  back 
even  beyond  Exodus,  back  to  the  first  cry 
and  confession  of  sin  from  man  to  his 
Maker.  '  The  woman  tempted  me  and  I  did 
eat'  And  she  —  the  serpent  tempted  her. 
And  behold!  when  your  Christ  prayed  he 
prayed  this  one  prayer,  after  the  prayer  for 
bread  and  for  forgiveness  :  '  Lead  us  not  into 
temptation ! '  " 

"  I  see,  I  see,"  he  said;  "  it  is  plain  indeed. 
You  would  not  have  the  man  tempted  to 
crowd  past  the  old  woman  with  the  load  on 
her  back  in  his  haste  to  be  first  at  the  mar- 


—  24  — 

ket.  You  would  not  let  the  poor,  bent  body 
be  tempted  to  give  the  price  of  her  load  to 
sustain  her  broken  body.  You  would  not 
open  the  houses  of  dissipation  to  the  poor  at 
night,  and  at  the  same  time  lock  the  doors 
of  God's  house." 

The  woman's  face  took  on  a  new  and 
glorious  light. 

"Man  is  good,"  she  began;  "man  is  al- 
most entirely  good.  Yet  if  he  was  tempted 
to  be  bad  in  Eden  where  all  was  so  perfect 
and  lovely,  how  shall  we  dare  hope  he  will 
not  fall  in  the  terrible  trials  with  which  he 
is  so  continually  beset  to-day  .-* " 

"  There  seems  to  me  but  one  thing  to  do  : 
Pray  the  prayer  and  live  the  prayer  of  Jesus 
Christ,  '  Lead  us  not  into  temptation,'  "  said 
the  man  earnestly  and  with  bowed  head. 

"  Ay,  then,"  said  the  woman  at  his  side, 
"  then  we  shall  see  the  cloud  of  smoke  by 
day,  after  we  have  followed  the  pillar  of  fire 
in  the  darkness:  and  we  can  then  read,  and 
can  then  comprehend  these  other  words  of 
Jesus  Christ :  'The  time  is  fultilled,  and  the 
kingdom  of  God  is  at  hand.'  " 

"  Yes,  yes,"  he  murmured  to  himself ;  and 
yet  he  feared  that  all  this  would  melt  and 
fade  away,  as  had  melted  and  faded  out  of 
sight  so  many  theories  and  pretty  sermons 


—  25  — 

to  which  he  had  Hstened  for  years.  It  all 
seemed  too  bright  and  beautiful  to  be  true. 
But  that  plan  of  hers  to  buy  a  cart  for  the 
old  woman  to  ride  in,  on  her  load  of  wood, 
was  not  the  plan  of  a  theorist.  Let  many 
churches  be  sold,  since  they  are  so  rarely  in 
use,  and  then  many  old  women  with  bent 
backs  could  have  carts  to  ride  in.  Carry  the 
idea  on  and  on  and  on ;  and  then  no  one 
could  jostle  any  one  at  all.  The  temptation 
to  jostle  an  old  woman  with  a  load  of  wood 
on  her  back  would  be  removed. 

"  Let  this  idea  enter  all  departments  of 
life.  Let  it  be  possible  for  all  to  ride.  Let 
every  man  be  a  king,  and  there  will  be  no 
contention  for  thrones,"  urged  the  woman, 
earnestly,  as  she  saw  that  her  listener  was 
intensely  interested.  "  Listen  to  me.  God 
is  the  great  emancipator  of  man  ;  not  Lincoln, 
not  the  Czar.  God  has  v/ritten  the  emanci- 
pation proclamation  of  man  in  lightning  on 
the  walls  of  heaven.  A  message  that  con- 
sumed half  a  year  a  little  time  ago  is  now 
delivered  in  an  hour.  A  single  hand  on  an 
engine  will  give  out  in  a  day  garments  that 
cost  a  thousand  hands  a  year  to  fashion  half 
a  century  back.  And  so  with  bread,  with 
houses,  with  all  things.  God  has  emanci- 
pated man,  I  say,  but  man  still  enthralls 
man." 


—  26  — 

They  had  slowly  descended,  and  walked 
toward  the  city.  It  is  all  plain,  this  which 
wc  orter  you  here.  The  way  by  which  we  set 
out  to  lead  up  out  of  Egypt  may  appear  to  you 
a  desert  course ;  it  may  seem  tortuous,  may 
look  to  you  like  the  contortions  of  a  serpent, 
of  the  brazen  serpent  for  the  fainting  people 
to  look  upon ;  but  bear  in  mind  we,  the 
human  race,  are  in  the  wilderness.  Faith 
must  be  put  to  the  test,  and  it  may  be  forty 
years  l^efore  we  look  down  into  the  promised 
land.  It  may  be  that  none  of  us  shall  live 
to  enter  there.  But  that  makes  the  exodus 
none  the  less  a  religious  duty.  Vou  and  you 
and  you  may  turn  back  to  the  flesh-pots  of 
Eg}'pt ;  the  writer  may  p)erish  in  the  wilder- 
ness and  no  man  know  his  burial-place  ;  but 
that  shall  make  the  truth  none  the  less  truth 
as  the  centuries  roll  forward. 

As  they  stood  in  the  serene  starlight  before 
the  low  white  door  of  the  little  hotel,  the 
woman  reached  the  man  her  hand  to  say 
good-by  and  let  him  go  his  way;  then  she 
said  slowly :  — 

•'  The  kingdom  of  heaven  is  at  hand  when 
temptation  is  not  at  hand.  And  this  is  the 
whole  stof)',  as  briefly  as  it  can  be  stated. 
In  this  search  for  the  highway  of  happiness 
for  man   I  did  not  at  once  decide  that  all 


—  27  — 

men  are  good  at  heart,"  she  said.  "  In  the 
course  of  my  hard  life  I  have  found  so  many 
sad  exceptions  to  this  general  rule  that  it 
seemed  impossible  to  accept  it.  But  that 
one  piteous  little  sentence  which  is  indeed 
the  substance  of  the  prayer  of  Jesus  Christ, 
— '  Lead  us  not  into  temptation,'  —  seemed 
so  full  of  confession  that  the  conviction 
gradually  fastened  itself  upon  me  that  all 
men  are  at  least  trying  to  be  good.  If  the 
prayer  had  read,  '  Make  us  strong  against 
temptation ;  '  if  the  prayer  had  said,  '  Be 
virith  us  in  the  hour  of  temptation  '  —  but  the 
confession,  '  Lead  us  not  into  temptation,  or 
we  shall  surely  fall,'  includes  all  men  and  all 
that  is  in  man.  A  penny  may  be  a  tempta- 
tion to  one,  a  kingdom  to  another;  and  so 
'  Lead  us  not  into  temptation.'  Stop  and 
consider  a  moment  how  unequal  are  all  men 
and  how  unequal  are  our  human  laws.  Some 
of  us  are  strong,  so  strong  that  ordinary 
things  are  not  temptations ;  but  a  poor 
wretch  bearing  a  load  of  sticks  on  her  back 
comes  by,  is  weary,  tempted  to  drink,  and 
falls.  And  we  who  are  above  the  little  thing 
that  tempted  her  turn  and  take  God's  sun- 
light out  of  her  eyes  for  days  together. 
Better  take  temptation  out  of  her  way ;  for 
God  made  her,  and  she  is  good,  whatever 


man  may  make  her.     Whoever  she  may  be, 
■  she  is  God's,  and  she  is  sacred,  wherever  she 
may  be." 

Pausing  a  time,  she  lifted  her  face  and 
said  earnestly :  "  Read  attentively  the  very 
first  chapter  of  the  Bible,  —  '  and  God  saw 
that  it  was  good.'  Time  after  time  is  this 
repeated :  '  And  God  saw  that  it  was  good.' 
'  And  God  saw  all  that  he  had  made,  and 
behold,  it  was  ver)'  good.'  And  yet  man 
dares  say  by  word  and  deed  continually  that 
it  is  not  good.  Why,  even  the  wild  beasts 
are  good.  The  fiercest  lion  of  the  desert  is 
bravely  good." 

For  an  instant,  as  she  ceased  to  speak,  her 
lifted  face  had  all  the  awful  splendor  of  a 
lioness  aroused. 

She  suddenly  again  gave  him  her  hand 
and  went  hastily  in  at  the  low.  white  door. 
He  stood  alone,  looking  after  her  for  a  long 
time,  and  then  went  his  way,  a  truer  man 
and  a  better  man  by  a  great  deal  than  he 
had  ever  been  before. 

The  stars  were  shining  through  his  inmost 
soul ;  for  he  loved  her  so.  Loved  her  !  He 
deified  her.  Beautiful  as  was  her  face  and 
form,  her  beauty  of  soul,  her  unselfish  sin- 
cerity and  devotion  to  the  cause  of  humanity 
made  her  his  angel,  his  ideal. 


—  29  — 

He  had  hated,  or  at  least  feared  and 
avoided  women  up  to  the  time  when  he  met 
her.  Now  a  woman  was  his  whole  world. 
She  was  his  earth  and  his  heaven.  Where 
would  it  end  ? 


IV. —THE  GROWING  OF  A  SOUL 

Hear  ye  this  parable.  A  naan 
Did  plant  a  garden.     V'ine  and  tree 

Alike,  in  course  of  time,  began 
To  put  forth  fair  and  pleasantly. 

The  rains  of  heaven,  the  persuading  sun 

Canie  down  alike  oo  each  and  every  one. 

Yet  some  trees  wilful  grew,  and  some 
Strong  vines  grew  gayly  in  the  sun. 

With  ,4audy  leaves,  that  ever  come 
To  naught.     A    '  -ing  one 

Did  flourish  on  :  -w 

Like  sunset  clouds  ui  all  thcu  uiuving  show. 

But  lo  !  the  them  not. 

The  soul  '..  (  )m  them.     Mould 

And  muck  and  leai  lay  there  to  rot, 

And  furnish  nourishment  untold 
To  patient  tree  and  lowly  creeping  vine 
That  grew  as  grew  the  Husbandman's  design. 

Hear  then  this  lesson  ;  hear  and  heed 
I  say  that  chaff  shall  perish  ;  say 

Man's  soul  is  like  unto  a  seed 
To  grow  unto  the  jud;^ment  Day. 

It  grows  an  i  he  will  have  it  grow; 

It  pcrishe-»  ;:  have  it  so. 

1  HIS  man  had  seen  the  world,  —  all  the 
civilized  world,  and  more  of  the  savage  world 
also  than  many.  For  years  he  had  travelled 
continually,  travelled  in  a  quiet  way,  keeping 


^31  — 

always  among  the  poor  and  toiling.  He 
wrote,  taught,  toiled  with  his  hands,  turned 
his  hand  to  what  he  could,  but  all  the  time 
remained  with  his  peers,  the  poor;  not  the 
low,  mind  you.  Now  and  then  he  happened 
to  write  something  that  attracted  the  atten- 
tion of  the  thinkers ;  and  then  some  strong 
hands  would  reach  out  and  lift  him  up  into 
the  great  white  light  that  beats  upon  thrones. 
But  he  was  glad  always  to  get  down  and 
out  of  it  all,  to  get  back  to  his  peers,  the 
poor ;  for  there  was  work  to  do. 

It  had  begun  to  appear  to  him  as  hardly 
fair  that  the  man  who  laid  the  brick  and 
mortar  and  made  the  great  sewers  through 
the  mud  and  malaria  of  Paris  and  London 
and  such  like  cities  should  not  be  able  to  eat 
meat  more  than  twice  each  week  without 
robbing  his  children,  while  the  man  who  did 
no  work  at  all,  but  walked  about  with  his 
face  held  high  in  the  sweet  air,  should  have 
meat  and  wine  twice  each  day;  ay,  many 
kinds  of  meat  and  wine  if  he  so  desired. 

He  said  one  day  to  one  of  these  men  down 
there  in  a  deep  sewer,  as  he  leaned  over  and 
bade  him  look  up :  "  Why  do  not  you  men 
unite  and  build  a  city  of  your  own  ?  Go  to 
America,  go  away  out  in  the  unsettled  deserts 
of  Arizona  or  Mexico,  find  a  warm,  beautiful 


spot,  plant  vines,  build  a  city,  and  have  peace 
and  plenty  all  your  own." 

The  man  shook  his  head  slowly,  and  finally 
said,  "  No;  we  built  Paris  and  we  are  going 
to  bum  Paris,  and  then  have  peace  and  plenty 
here." 

This  was  a  few  months  before  the  Com- 
mune. 

Now  the  burning  of  Paris  was  not  so 
much,  —  not  so  much  in  comparison  with  the 
deep  and  terrible  hate  in  the  heart  of  that 
man.  Man  can  easily  make  a  city,  but  it 
takes  God  to  make  a  man.  And  it  takes 
even  God  generations  upon  generations, 
under  His  own  laws,  to  build  up  a  single 
manly,  sweet-souled  human  man  out  of  such 
hardened  and  bitter  material  as  that. 

Here  is  what  the  woman  whom  he  met  in 
Jerusalem  wrote  to  him,  soon  after  they  first 
met  as  described,  on  the  subject  of  city 
building :  — 

"  The  flow  of  population  is  steadily  to  the 
great  centres  of  the  earth.  This  cannot  be 
stopped  or  stayed.  The  people  are  pouring 
into  the  cities.  The  only  thing  to  be  done 
is  to  make  the  cities  fit  for  their  reception. 
There  is  not  to-day  one  farm-house  in  all 
Russia  or  France.  A  new  order  of  things 
has  come  upon  cities  and  villages,  and  the 


—  33  — 

man  who  loves  his  fellow-men  must  now 
meet  this  new  order  of  things  like  a  practical 
man. 

"  The  man  who  lives  for  himself  only  lives 
for  a  very  small  man. 

"  Man  should  lay  the  foundation  stones  of 
his  city  where  God  has  laid  them.  Why  will 
he  not  choose  the  beautiful  mountain  slopes 
of  America,  instead  of  the  marshes  of  Liver- 
pool, the  mud  of  London,  or  the  malaria- 
reeking  ruins  of  Rome.-*  Is  it  because  he 
has  not  hope,  heart,  unity,  strength  ? 

"  Well,  then,  since  these  workers,  these 
world-builders,  have  not  these  qualities,  let 
those  who  love  the  world  go  forth,  find  sunny 
slopes  and  natural  hills  of  health,  and  there, 
with  God  to  help  them,  lay  the  corner-stones 
of  the  new  cities  under  this  new  order  of 
things,  for  these  new  people  who  so  per- 
sistently and  so  helplessly  pour  into  the 
cities. 

"  Man  must  be  saved  from  man.  Jesus 
Christ  lived  and  died  to  save  man ;  to  save 
man  from  man,  not  man  from  God ;  to  save 
man  from  himself  by  His  example  of  patient 
pity  and  forgiveness  and  the  precepts  of  the 
Sermon  on  the  Mount. 

"  Is  man  an  antediluvian  monster,  that  he 
shall  for  all  time  wallow  in  the  mud  and 
3 


—  34  — 

mire  of  some  old  seaport?  Is  man  a  beast, 
that  he  should  be  led  along  forever  with 
blinds  before  his  eyes  for  fear  that  he  may 
see  the  light  and  run  away? 

**  Let  us  go  forth  and  build  a  city  where 
there  are  roomy,  sunlit,  untrod  mountain- 
sides; build  it  on  the  beautiful  foundation 
stones  that  Cod  has  laid  with  his  own  hand; 
and  let  us  lay  the  moral  and  social  founda- 
tions on  the  sacred  and  immortal  precepts  of 
the  Srr  »  the  Mount;   build  in  Faith 

and  H--,  .  Charity,  and  leave  the  rest  to 

time,  to  God's  fimt-bom. 

**  No,  you  should  not  compel  man  to  be- 
lieve th~'  '  -■  •  '•  '  *  we  man  from  God. 
Let  all  ^  s^iven  them  to  be- 

lieve, as  to  whether  Christ  died  to  save  man 
from  man  or  to  save  man  from  God.  Nor 
should  you  insist  that  Christ  is  the  only 
begotten  Son  of  (iod.  This  has  been  argued 
by  sword  and  pen,  till  every  venerable  city 
that  was  ever  founded  has  been  drenched  in 
blood  and  tears.  Only  let  each  man  try  to 
believe  in  man  and  obey  the  precepts  of  the 
Sermon  on  the  Mount.  There  are  many  sons 
of  God.  , 

The  good  God  made  us  all  very  beauti- 
ful in  soul  and  body  to  begin  with;  and 
very,  very  happy  too;   therefore  we   know 


—  35  — 

that  He  desires  us  to  be  continually  happy 
and  continually  beautiful.  And  if  we  are 
not  continually  happy  and  continually  beau- 
tiful is  it  the  fault  of  God  or  the  fault  of 
man  ? 

"Indisputably  it  is  entirely  the  fault  of 
man.  Let  us  then  see  that  man  be  made 
less  miserable.  Let  us  look  less  dogmat- 
ically after  God,  who  can  well  afford  to  pity 
us  for  our  wrongs  to  His  beautiful  image. 
And  now  let  us  go  forth  with  the  Sermon  on 
the  Mount  in  hand  and  build  the  City  Beau- 
tiful ;  and  as  we  go  forth  on  this  mission,  as 
good  men  go  to  far  countries  and  lay  down 
their  lives  in  dark  lands,  let  us  ponder  on  His 
words  for  the  poor  and  oppressed:  '  P?ter, 
feed  my  sheep.' " 

These  few  quotations  will  show  you  more 
of  the  soul  and  character  and  lofty  purpose 
of  this  woman  than  would  a  dozen  chap- 
ters of  ours. 

It  would  be  idle  to  record  his  replies 
to  these  strong  and  sincere  appeals  for  man. 
Like  a  strong  swimmer,  borne  forward  by  a 
strong,  pure  mountain  torrent,  he  was  en- 
tirely at  her  will.  He  asked  nothing  more 
nothing  better  or  higher, -only  to  help  her 
help  man ;  that  was  all  in  all  to  him. 

How  he  worshipped  her!    And  yet,  she 


-36- 

ever  seemed  so  far  away.  Once  he  dared  to 
take  her  hand.  She  did  not  reprove  him  ; 
she  did  not  withdraw  it,  but  he  felt  no 
response,  such  as  he  had  hoped  as  some  re- 
ward for  his  daring.  What  did  her  passive 
serenity  mean? 


V.  —  HOW   BEAUTIFUL  ! 

"  How  beautiful  are  the  feet  of  those  that 
preach  the  gospel  of  peace  and  bring  glad 
tidings  of  good  things  !  " 

0  star-built  bridge,  broad  milky  way  ! 
O  star -lit,  stately,  splendid  span  ! 

If  but  one  star  should  cease  to  stay 

And  prop  its  shoulders  to  God's  plan  — 
The  man  who  lives  for  self,  I  say, 
He  lives  for  neither  God  nor  man. 

1  count  the  columned  waves  at  war 

With  Titan  elen)ents  ;  and  they, 
In  martial  splendor,  storm  the  bar 

And  shake  the  world,  these  bits  of  spray. 
Each  gives  to  each,  and  like  the  star 
Gets  back  its  gift  in  tenfold  pay. 

To  get  and  give  and  give  amain 
The  rivers  run  and  oceans  roll. 

0  generous  and  high-born  rain 
When  raining  as  a  splendid  whole  i 

That  man  who  lives  for  self,  again, 

1  say,  has  neither  sense  nor  soul. 

VV  E  have  spoken  of  Miriam  as  a  silent 
woman,  for  she  really  seemed  silent  at  all 
times.  She  was,  in  fact,  spoken  of  by  all 
who  knew  her  in  London  as  the  silent 
woman.  And  yet  it  will  be  seen  that  she 
said  much.     It  may  be  that  it  is  the  man  or 


-38- 

woman  who  says  nothing  who  is  a  great 
talker. 

Socrates  was  a  strangely  silent  man  in  his 
younger  days,  so  far  as  we  can  find  out ; 
and  yet  he  really  said  more  than  all  the  men 
and  women  of  his  century,  so  far  as  we 
know. 

Jesus  Christ  was  sad  and  silent  at  all 
times;  and  yet  the  things  he  said  and  sug- 
gested fill  more  books  and  find  place  in  the 
hearts  of  more  good  people  than  the  sayings 
of  all  the  great  men  of  earth  put  together. 

Beauty,  beauty  of  body  and  soul,  was  her 
idol.  She  kept  the  following  lines  from  the 
Bible  constantly  before  her  :  — 

"  Thou  art  beautiful,  O  my  love,  as  Tir- 
zah,  comely  as  Jerusalem,  terrible  as  an 
army  with  banners." 

And  here  is  another  line  she  loved  to 
repeat :  — 

"  He  hath  made  all  things  beautiful  in 
his  time." 

Here  follow  some  extracts  from  an  epistle 
to  Sir  Moses  Montifiore  on  his  hundredth 
birthday :  — 

"  All  things  are  beautiful.  All  animate  life  is 
wondrously  beautiful.  Vou  are  beautiful ;  you 
were  born  beautiful,  —  beautiful  in  body  as  in 


—  39  — 

soul ',  beautiful  with  the  divine  beauty  and  image 
of  the  Eternal.  If  this  beauty  of  man  shall  be 
marred  or  scarred  it  will  be  the  fault  of  man,  not 
of  his  Maker.  Time  shall  not  touch  nor  tarnish 
man's  beauty ;  man,  only,  can  lay  hand  upon  it. 
Man  alone  may  make  this  beauty  of  body  and  of 
soul  less  perfectly  beautiful  than  God  made  it 
at  the  first. 

**  It  is  a  crime  to  make  this  beauty  less 
beautiful.  It  is  a  duty  to  make  this  beauty 
daily  more  beautiful,  —  man's  duty  to  himself, 
man's  duty  to  his  Maker,  man's  duty  to  man. 
It  is  man's  duty  to  make  his  youth  sweetly 
beautiful ;  it  is  man's  duty  to  make  his  merid- 
ian of  life  magnificently  beautiful ;  it  is  man's 
sacred  duty  to  make  his  declining  years,  like 
your  own,  so  serenely  beautiful  that  man  shall 
be  in  love  with  old  age,  —  to  be  so  tranquil,  so 
perfectly  at  peace,  so  beautiful  in  body  and  in 
soul  —  a  stately  tree,  Elijah's  chariot  of  fire 
in  the  golden  autumn  —  that  men  shall  see  a 
halo  of  light  above  the  good,  gray  head  as  it 
goes  down  in  the  twilight  to  the  River  of  Rest. 

"  '  Ah,  no,  impossible  ! '  sighs  one  ;  *  I  cannot 
grow  more  beautiful  daily,  for  I  am  daily  trod- 
den into  the  dust.  I  cannot  even  retain  the 
beauty  of  body  and  of  soul  which  God  gave  me 
to  begin  with.' 

"  I  answer,  look  about  you  at  the  down-trod- 
den grass.  Resurgam  !  Resurgam  !  Look  above 
you  at  the  busy  clouds,  the  battling  elements. 


—  40  — 

There  is  not  so  very  much  rest  anywhere,  but 
there  is  beauty  everywhere.  Ay,  I  look  down 
to  the  grass  under  my  feet.  The  grass  is  daily 
trodden  down,  and  yet  it  daily,  hourly,  tries  to 
rise  up,  to  grow  and  grow  and  be  more  beautiful 
even  with  its  face  in  the  dust.  And  when  the 
storm  comes  it  washes  its  face  in  the  rain  and 
rises  up  and  again  goes  forward  in  its  patient 
effort  to  make  its  one  little  place  in  man's  path- 
way still  more  beautiful. 

"  Yes,  it  is  to  be  conceded  that  there  is  not 
much  rest  for  any  one  of  us  or  for  anything. 
All  things  toil.  The  oceans  are  busy  building 
their  sea-banks  of  shell  and  shale  and  snow- 
white  sand  and  pretty,  rounded  pebbles.  The 
flowers  toil,  the  trees  toil  and  toil  and  are  often 
broken  in  mighty  battles  with  the  elements. 
All  things  toil  and  toil  continually  to  make 
this  beautiful  world  still  more  beautiful.  And 
God  himself,  so  far  as  we  can  find  out,  is  the 
hardest  toiler  of  all. 

The  thing  to  do  is  to  toil  harmoniously. 
Put  the  working  world  in  harmony,  and  then 
work  is  rest.  It  is  for  this  purpose,  the  purpose 
of  possibly  helping  along  in  the  line  of  har- 
mony, that  these  thoughts,  set  down  in  the 
intervals  of  travel  and  toil  of  supervising,  here 
in  Palestine,  the  ploughing  and  planting,  sowing 
grain  or  gathering  fruit  —  it  is  in  the  hope  of 
harmonizing  and,  maybe,  the  lighting  of  a 
lamp  in   one  or  two   of  the   darker  passes   of 


—  41  — 

life,  as  the  peasants  of  Russia  light  lamps 
before  the  image  of  the  Virgin  in  the  danger- 
ous passes  of  mountains,  that  I  continually 
invoke  the  adoration  of  beauty. 

"  Meantime  there  is  good  reason  for  hope ; 
for  the  world  grows  better,  brighter ,  and  more 
beautiful,  vastly  more  beautiful  year  by  year.  So 
beautiful,  indeed,  has  the  world  become  that  it 
almost  seems  that  if  man  could  only  harmonize 
his  forces,  harmonize  himself,  with  his  surround- 
ings, harmonize  himself  with  himself,  he  could 
reach  forth  and  say  truly :  '  The  kingdom  of 
heaven  is  at  hand.' 

"  But,  alas !  we  are  a  lot  of  garrulous  children 
in  a  great,  big  boat  in  a  great,  big  bay ;  and 
some  row  east  and  some  row  west,  and  some 
will  not  row  at  all,  but  live  and  thrive  on  the 
fears  and  misery  and  the  despair  of  the  weaker 
ones. 

"  But  we  must  go  forward  and  forward  and 
forward,  not  around  and  around  and  around, 
as  in  all  the  centuries  behind  us.  We  must 
break  this  fatal  circle.  To  this  I  consecrate 
my  life." 


VI.  —  THE   SERMON    ON   THE 
MOUNT. 

1  think  the  birds  in  that  far  dawn 

Were  stilL     The  bustling  town  below 

I^y  listening.     Its  strength  was  drawn 

To  him,  as  tides  that  inward  flow. 
.\11  Galilee  lay  still.     Far  fields  of  com 
Lay  still  to  hear  that  silent,  sacred  mom. 

Be  comforted  ;  and  blessed  be 

The  meek,  the  merciful,  the  pure 

Of  heart ;  for  they  shall  see,  shall  hear 

God's  mercy.     So  shall  peace  endure 

With  God's  peacemakers.     They  are  His,  and  they 
Shall  be  His  children  in  the  Judgment  Day 

1  HE  great  philanthropist  had  returned 
to  London,  leaving  our  two  younger  phi- 
lanthropists and  city-builders  together  in 
Jerusalem. 

These  two  persons  were  together  now 
almost  entirely.  They  were  absolute  mas- 
ters of  their  own  time  and  work.  They  were 
under  no  legal  obligation  to  any  one.  But 
what  of  that  broader  and  far  more  binding 
moral  obligation  to  man  which  goes  with 
ever)'  gift  of  mental  strength  ? 

Bemg  entirely  released  from  all  further 
care  in  Jerusalem,  because  the  colonies  in 


—  43  — 

and  round  about  the  ancient  cities  had  been 
trained,  according  to  the  wish  of  their 
founder,  to  lean  on  themselves,  Miriam  now 
began  to  look  abroad. 

As  said  before,  she  was  far  from  satisfied 
that  the  best  that  could  be  done  had  been 
done  here.  It  seemed  to  her  like  the  same 
old  story  of  going  around  and  around  and 
around ;  and  she  could  not  help  seeing  that 
every  new  generation  would  need  a  new 
Saviour  and  a  new  Sermon  on  the  Mount. 
The  same  old  enmities,  the  same  old  sor- 
rows, and  the  same  old  sins. 

There  was  a  colony  of  Christians  down  by 
the  sea  not  far  from  Joppa.  The  two  city- 
builders  went  thither  to  see,  to  listen,  and,  if 
possible,  to  learn. 

They  found  that  these  colonists  had  come 
to  the  Holy  Land  to  pray  and  to  await  the 
coming  of  Christ.  Their  devout  lives,  their 
humility  and  continual  habit  of  prayer  ap- 
pealed to  the  man  greatly.  But  as  for  the 
woman,  she  had  no  patience  with  them. 

"  They  should  have  gone  to  work  in  their 
own  land,  where  God  first  set  them  down  in 
the  battle  of  life,  and  Christ  would  have 
been  with  them,"  she  said. 

"  Why,  how  selfish  !  "  she  continued.  "  These 
few  came  here  to  await  the  second  coming 


—  44  — 

of  Christ ;  as  if  they  would  be  first  to  get 
into  heaven," 

"  But  they  are  so  verj'  devout." 

"  Yes,  they  prayed  for  rain  all  day  and 
nearly  all  night  last  week,  I  am  told  ;  for 
their  corn  was  being  consumed  by  the  fervor 
of  the  sun." 

♦'  And  was  not  that  a  fine  example  of 
faith  ? " 

"  It  was  a  fine  example  of  folly,  like  all 
such  prayers,  and  an  exhibition  of  supreme 
selfishness.  Why,  they  appealed  to  God  to 
change  a  law  of  nature.  They  cried  out  to 
God  all  day  and  all  night  to  send  rain  and 
ruin  all  the  figs  of  Smyrna  in  order  that  they 
might  have  a  dozen  bags  of  corn !  They 
simply  prayed  God  to  ruin  fifty  thousand 
people  in  order  that  fifty  might  have  a  little 
more  green  corn  to  eat !  Selfishness  like 
that  cannot  sur\'ive,  and  it  should  not." 

He  had  never  before  seen  her  out  of  pa- 
tience so  entirely.  It  was  evident  that  her 
plans  for  the  salvation  of  the  world,  what- 
ever they  were,  lay  in  line  with  the  laws  of 
nature.  He  began  to  learn  that  this  bound- 
less faith  of  hers  was  travelling  hand  in  hand 
with  reason.  For  while  he,  for  his  part,  gave 
this  colony  of  Christians  all  possible  encour- 
agement, and  also  a  little  solid  assistance  to 


—  45  — 

help  tide  them  through  the  trouble  that  was 
upon  them  because  of  the  failure  of  corn, 
she  gave  neither  consolation  nor  money.  But 
instead,  she  gave  the  leader  a  letter  to  the 
British  and  American  consuls,  and  directed 
him  how  to  proceed  to  get  his  people  home 
at  her  cost. 

Half  a  year  after  the  long  prayer  for  rain, 
this  colony,  a  sort  of  prayerful  Brook  Farm, 
was  added  to  the  list  of  similar  failures,  and 
the  marsh  grass  now  grows  where  the  really 
devout  and  moral  little  community  could  not 
make  corn  to  grow  with  all  their  prayers. 

It  is  needless  to  say  that  this  object-lesson 
in  city-building  here  in  the  Holy  Land  was 
a  sad  discouragement  to  this  man.  What- 
ever her  plans  were,  he,  for  his  part,  had 
planned  something  not  very  different  from 
this.  Only,  he  had  not  contemplated  the 
turning  back  of  man  in  his  journey  around 
the  globe.  He  believed  rather  that  all  men 
should  remain  as  nearly  as  possible  at  home, 
and  begin  the  great  reform  in  their  own 
dooryard. 

"  Neither  will  that  do,"  she  said  emphati- 
cally, as  they  sat  by  the  Virgin's  Fountain 
at  Nazareth,  whither  they  had  gone  as  win- 
ter came  on,  and  where  they  discussed  this 
greatest  problem  of  humanity. 


-46- 

"  A  well  must  be  dug  in  the  desert,  and  a 
great  protecting  tree  be  planted  there.  Of 
course,  any  good  man  will  do  his  best ;  his 
hearthstone  will  be  a  holy  altar  on  which  he 
will  lay  his  toil  and  example  and  life,  and 
good  children  will  grow  from  his  good  deeds. 
But  a  Jacob  must  rise  up  to  dig  a  well  by 
the  way,  and  a  Moses  must  come  to  lead  up 
and  out  from  the  bondage  of  getting  and 
getting  and  getting.  There  must  be  some 
great  central  beginning;  and  it  must  be  re- 
moved, it  must  be  remote  from  all  these  cruel 
and  hard  traditions  of  trade  till,  like  a  child, 
it  has  at  least  learned  to  stand  alone.  F'or, 
although  the  new-born  city  might  be  a  Her- 
cules at  its  birth,  there  would  come,  not  only 
two  serpents,  but  twenty  serpents,  to  stran- 
gle it  in  its  cradle." 

This,  the  foregoing,  is  what  she  said  one 
twilight  as  they  sat  on  the  now  grass-grown 
escarpment  of  the  hill  above  the  holy  little 
city,  and  in  answer  to  his  hint  that  they 
should  build  the  City  Beautiful  there  where 
they  would  have  slain  the  Christ.  And  she 
said  it  so  severely !  She  was  almost  cruel  in 
her  putting  aside  of  his  sentimental  plans. 
Do  or  say  what  he  could  she  seemed  to  grow 
further  away  from  him  day  by  day ;  and  his 


—  47  — 

earnest,  honest  heart  was  breaking  for  just 
one  word.  Was  he  so  entirely  of  earth,  or 
was  it  that  she  was  so  entirely  of  heaven, 
that  he  had  not  yet  dared  a  second  time  to 
touch  her  hand? 


VII.  —  IN    THE    SWEAT    OF    THY 
FACE. 

What  sound  was  that  ?    A  pheasant's  whir  ? 

What  stroke  was  that  ?  Lean  low  thine  ear. 
Is  that  the  stroke  of  carpenter, 

That  far,  faint  echo  that  we  hear  ? 
Is  that  the  sound  that  sometime  Bedouins  tell 
Of  hammer  stroke  as  from  his  hand  it  fell  ? 

It  is  the  stroke  of  carpenter, 

Through  eighteen  hundred  years  and  more 
Still  sounding  down  the  hallowed  stir 

Of  patient  toil ;  as  when  he  wore 
The  leathern  dress,  —  the  echo  of  a  sound 
That  thrills  for  aye  the  toiling,  sensate  ground. 

Hear  Mary  weaving  !  Listen  !  Hear 
The  thud  of  loom  at  weaving  time 

In  Nazareth.     1  wreathe  this  dear 
Tradition  with  my  lowly  rhyme. 

Believing  everywhere  that  she  may  hear 

The  sound  of  toil,  sweet  Mary  bends  an  ear. 

Yea,  this  the  toil  that  Jesus  knew  ; 

Vet  we  complain  if  we  must  bear. 
Are  we  more  dear  ?     .Are  we  more  true  ? 

Give  us,  O  God,  and  do  not  spare  I 
Give  us  to  bear  as  Christ  and  Mary  bore 
With  toil  by  leaf-girt  Nazareth  of  yore  I 

i  HESE  rhymes  tell  in  a  crude  way  a 
pretty  tradition  of  toil.  It  is  the  dove  per- 
haps,  the  wood   dove,  which   the   half-wild 


—  49—       ' 

sons  of  desolation  and  the  desert  have  heard ; 
for  Nazareth  is  still  the  city  of  woods.  The 
very  name  meant  woods.  Even  now,  as  in 
the  time  of  Jesus  Christ,  people  of  the  city 
are  saying,  "  Can  any  good  thing  come  out 
of  the  woods  —  the  West  ?  " 

To  recount  the  plans  of  these  two  city- 
builders,  here  where  Christ  toiled,  taught  in 
the  synagogue,  and  was  dragged  to  the  hill- 
top to  be  hurled  down,  would  take  long 
indeed.  Let  it  be  enough  to  say  that  they 
were  seeking  for  light.  "  Light,  more  light !  " 
was  their  one  desire  and  demand. 

"  Life  is  so  short !  "  she  said  one  day.  "  For 
my  part,  I  cannot  afford  to  make  a  failure 
and  die.  That  would  be  too  terrible  !  "  She 
paused  long,  and  then  with  lifted  face  and 
clasped  hands  she  said  earnestly,  "But  to 
make  a  success,  and  then  die — ah,  that 
would  be  joy,  joy,  joy  !  " 

At  such  times  as  this  she  seemed  to  him 
to  be  thousands  of  miles  from  his  side.  It 
is  more  than  possible  that  a  strong,  pure, 
and  complete  woman  may  concentrate  her 
entire  soul  and  body  to  some  high  and  holy 
purpose  as  well  without  taking  either  vow  or 
veil  as  if  she  took  both  in  all  due  form  and 
solemnity. 

Leaving    Nazareth,    they    journeyed     oa 
4 


—  50  — 

down  into  Egypt,  taking  the  same  way,  as 
nearly  as  possible,  as  that  by  which  Moses 
had  come  when  leading  his  people  toward 
the  Holy  Land. 

One  single  incident  of  this  journey,  which 
might  well  fill  a  book,  must  be  recorded  ;  for 
it  not  only  indicates  something  of  her  cour- 
age and  strength  of  devotion  but  also  tells 
something  of  her  strange  belief  in  not  only 
the  brotherhood  of  man  but  of  all  animate 
life. 

They  were  tented  for  the  night  in  the 
desert  to  the  south  of  Mount  Sinai  when  a 
lion  approached  almost  to  the  tent  door.  As 
she  calmly  put  her  terrified  servants  behind 
her  and,  without  a  word,  stepped  between 
the  man  and  the  crouching  beast,  she  looked 
it  firmly  in  the  face  and  said  :  — 

'•  Why,  don't  you  know  me  ?  I  remember 
you,  my  brother,  after  all  these  ages."  And 
she  moved  forward  and  would  have  laid  her 
hand  upon  the  lion's  tumbled  mane  had  he 
not  drawn  back  and  away  to  the  sombre 
bosom  of  his  mother,  Night. 

Yes,  "  I  seem  to  remember  all  this  now.  I 
surely  saw  that  lion  long,  long  ago,  and  loved 
him,"  she  said  to  the  man  at  last,  looking  out 
and  away  to  the  holy  mountain. 

"  And  you  have  been  here  before? " 


—  51  — 

"  Yes,  yes,  when  Moses  passed  this  way, 
thousands  of  years  back,  I  was  here,  I 
remember  it  all  as  if  it  were  but  yesterday." 

The  journeys  on  the  Nile,  Karnak  —  all 
these  are  old,  old.  Let  us  go  forward  to  the 
building  of  the  new. 

He  had  hoped  somehow  that  in  this  warm 
land  she  would  be  nearer  to  him.  She  could 
not  be  dearer.  She  was  his  divinity,  but 
she  grew  more  distant,  daily  more  distant. 
Or  rather  let  us  say  simply  she  grew,  daily 
grew  in  grandeur  of  soul,  grew  in  goodness 
and  unselfishness ;  and  so,  like  a  growing 
tree,  was  daily  growing  above  him  and 
beyond  his  touch  or  possible  reach. 


VIII.  —  THE   CHRIST  IN   EGYPT. 

O  land  of  temples,  land  of  tombs  ! 

O  tawny  land,  O  lion  dead ! 
O  silent  land  of  silent  looms  ; 

Of  kingly  garments  torn  to  shred ! 
O  land  of  storied  wonder  still,  as  when 
Fair  Joseph  stood  the  chief  est  of  all  men  I 

The  Christ  in  Egypt !     Eg>'pt  and 
Her  mystic  star-built  Pyramids  ! 

Her  shoreless,  tiger  seas  of  sand! 

Her  Sphynx  with  fixed  and  weary  lids  ! 

Her  red  and  rolling  Nile  of  yellow  sheaves 

Where  Moses  cradled  'mid  his  lily  leaves. 

Her  lorn,  dread  temples  of  the  dead 
Had  waited,  as  mute  milestones  wait 

By  some  untraverscd  way  unread. 
Until  the  King,  or  soon  or  late, 

Should  come  that  tomb-built  way  and  silent  pass 

To  read  their  signs  above  the  sand-sown  grass. 

Behold  !  Amid  this  majesty 
Of  ruin,  at  the  dust-heaped  tomb 

Of  vanity  came  Christ  to  see 

Earth's  emptiness,  the  dark  death  room 

Of  haughtiness,  of  kingly  pomp,  of  greed. 

Of  gods  of  gold  or  stone,  or  storied  creed. 

And  this  His  first  abiding-place  ! 

And  these  dread  scenes  His  childhood's  toys  ! 
What  wonder  at  that  thoughtful  face? 

That  boy  face  never  yet  a  boy's  ? 
What  wonder  that  the  elders  marvelled  when 
A  boy  spake  in  the  Temple  unto  men  ? 


—  53  — 

VV  HEN  the  perfect  woman  comes  —  and 
she  will  come  —  she  will  appeal  to  the  soul 
of  man,  not  to  his  body ;  and  then  the  per- 
fect man  will  not  be  far  off. 

Wherever  this  majestic  and  beautiful  wo- 
man was,  —  this  piteously  beautiful  woman, 
whatever  she  was  yet  to  be  or  may  have 
been,  —  she  seemed  to  be,  from  the  first  time 
we  encountered  her  at  Jerusalem,  entirely 
unconscious  of  sex.  She  seemed  not  to  be 
a  body,  but  a  soul;  and  a  soul,  as  said 
before,  that  was  growing  daily,  as  a  great 
magnolia  flower-tree  grows,  with  its  perfect 
flowers  and  its  soft,  warm,  sensuous  perfume, 
widening,  warming  day  by  day  till  it  fills  the 
garden,  turns  all  faces  to  this  one  flower- 
tree,  draws  all  things  to  itself,  and  drowns 
all  senses  but  this  one  sense  of  perfume  and 
the  perfection  of  form  and  color. 

As  they  had  descended  through  the  deserts 
and  wilderness,  and,  as  before  noted,  had 
retraced  the  ancient  path  by  which  Israel 
had  gone  up  out  of  Egypt,  she  seemed  to 
this  man  who  companioned  her,  followed  her 
afar  off,  to  be  all-powerful. 

There  is  a  lone  obelisk  where  stood  the 
city  of  Om,  famous  as  the  place  where  Plato 
and  others  of  the  wise  men  studied  philos- 


—  54  — 

ophy,  —  one  lone  obelisk ;  and  that  is  all  you 
can  see  to-day  of  the  storied  city  of  Om, 
where,  it  is  still  whispered,  men  gathered 
together  who  knew  all  things,  — even  to  the 
secrets  that  were  before  life  and  are  after 
death. 

Some  palm  trees  stood  not  far  away,  and 
the  two  sat  on  a  toppled  granite  column  in 
silence  there  together  as  the  sun  was  going 
down  on  tawny,  tired,  and  prostrate  Egypt. 

'•  Oh  to  see  Eg)'pt  rise  up  and  stand  erect 
in  her  splendor  once  more  before  the  end  of 
the  world  ! "  He  said  this  at  last,  as  the  sun 
lay  level  on  the  red  waters  of  the  Nile,  and 
dashed  the  world  with  molten  gold. 

Was  it  a  sense  of  pain  that  tinged  her 
face,  —  displeasure,  effort,  exhaustion,  some- 
thing such  as  Christ  felt  as  he  turned  to  the 
woman  when  she  touched  the  hem  of  His 
garment  .**  Or  was  it  a  sense  of  his  own 
unworthiness  whjch  made  him  to  imagine 
that  a  faint  tinge  of  displeasure  swept  over 
her  face  as  she  lifted  it  to  the  waters,  and  in 
silence  put  forth  her  hand  as  she  arose  .-* 

Who  shall  say  ?  And  what  matter.-*  His 
eyes,  as  he  sprang  to  his  feet,  followed  the 
direction  of  her  hand,  and  there,  before  his 
startled  vision,  in  all  her  storied  splendor 
of    dome,    citadel,   and    battlement,   grove. 


—  55  — 

garden,  turret,  and  tower,  that  melted  into 
the  hazy  horizon  and  filled  all  the  face  of  the 
earth  as  far  as  the  eye  could  sweep,  lay 
ancient  Egypt.  Describe  the  scene  ?  The 
attempt  would  be  profanity.  Account  for 
this  power  of  hers  ?  When  science  will  come 
forward  and  account  for  the  cities,  seas, 
forests,  armies  of  marching  heroes  with 
banners  and  battle  harness,  that  men  see 
almost  daily  for  them.selves  on  the  plains  and 
deserts  of  America,  without  even  the  pres- 
ence of  any  finer  organization  than  their  own 
to  call  up  these  visions  of  the  past,  then  will 
it  be  time  enough  to  give  some  reasons  here. 
As  her  wearied  hand  fell  to  her  side,  she 
sank  back ;  all  Egypt  of  old  fell  down  and 
lay  again  in  dust  beneath  her  pyramids.  He 
felt  that  now  she  was  as  far  av/ay  from  him 
and  above  him  and  beyond  him,  as  was  the 
farthest  and  loftiest  column  she  had  recalled 
to  existence.  He  sighed  as  they  turned  in 
silence  home.  He  now  began  to  see  his 
uselessness  and  his  helplessness  in  her  pres- 
ence. All  the  manhood  in  the  man  began  to 
rise  in  self-assertion.  He  grew  more  firmly 
resolved  than  ever  to  go  forth  alone  and 
meditate  and  purify  his  soul,  go  up  in  the 
mountains  to  pray,  as  did  the  prophets  of 
old,  till  he,  too,  had  Faith. 


IX.  — AWAITING  THE   RESURREC- 
TION AT  KARNAK. 

Lorn  land  of  silence,  land  of  awe ! 

Lorn,  lawless  land  of  Moslem  will,  — 
The  great  Law-giver  and  the  law 

Have  gone  away  together.     Still 
The  sun  shines  on  ;  still  Nilus  darkly  red 
Steals  un  between  his  awful  walls  of  dead. 

And  sapphire  skies  still  bend  as  when 

Proud  Kamak's  countless  columns  propped 

The  comers  of  the  world  ;  when  men 

Kept  watch  where  massive  Cheops  topped 

Their  utmost  reach  of  thought,  and  sagely  drew 

Their  star-ltt  lines  along  the  trackless  blue. 

But  Phthah  lies  prostrate  evermore  ; 

And  Thoth  and  Neith  all  are  gone  ; 
.\nd  hiii^e  Oiiri^  hears  no  more, 

Thcbtrs'  mclodirt  ;  nor  Mut  at  On  ; 
Yet  one  lone  obelisk  still  lords  the  spot 
Where  Plato  sat  to  learn,     but  On  is  not. 

Nor  yet  has  Time  encompassed  all ; 

You  trace  your  finger  o'er  a  name 
That  mocks  at  age  within  the  wall 

Of  fearful  Karnak.     Sword  nor  flame 
Shall  touch  what  men  have  journeyed  far  to  touch 
And  felt  eternity  in  daring  such ! 

*'  J uda  Melchi  Shishak  !  "     Read 

The  Holy  Book  ;  read  how  that  he 

With  chariot  and  champing  steed 
Invaded  far  and  fair  Judea. 

Yea,  read  the  chronicle  of  red  hands  laid 
On  '•  shields  of  gold  which  Solomon  had  made" 


—  57  — 

ilE  would  look  once  more  upon  Upper 
Egypt  through  her  eyes,  and  then  away  about 
his  work.  She  was  so  infinitely  above  him 
that  he  could  only  clasp  his  hands  and  with 
lifted  face  worship  her;  he  could  worship 
her  from  afar  as  well  as  near  at  hand.  He 
could  not  love  her  more,  though  he  sat  at 
her  feet  forever,  and  walked  at  her  side  even 
through  the  shadows  of  the  valley  of  death. 
He  would  not,  he  could  not,  love  her  less 
though  millions  of  miles  away. 

Did  I  forget  to  tell  you  that  her  singularly 
intense  and  perfect  mentality  took  in  and 
absorbed  to  herself  the  minds,  the  inmost 
thoughts  of  those  who  came  in  contact  with 
her?  She  knev/  men's  thoughts,  —  may  I 
say  it,  with  humbled  head  ?  —  as  Christ  knew 
men's  thoughts. 

"  There  is  a  tomb,  a  mighty  tomb,  not  far 
from  here,"  — and  this  was  at  K/irnak  that 
she  now  spoke,  —  "  which  no  man  has  entered 
since  long,  long  before  Christ  came  to  Egypt, 
and  this  you  should  see." 

She  had  been  talking  of  his  going,  of  his 
plans,  his  purposes,  —  talking  to  him  in  the 
same  clear,  sweet  way  as  in  Jerusalem  and 
at  Nazareth,  that  morning.  And  yet  he  had 
said  nothing  at  all  of  these  things  to  her  for 
a  long  time. 


-58- 

Knowing  that  she  knew  his  heart,  his 
hopes,  his  plans,  how  quietly  good,  patient, 
and  true  he  had  begun  to  grow  !  And  why 
should  he  tell  her  anything,  since  she  knew 
all  and  more  than  all  that  he  could  possibly 
find  words  to  utter  in  all  the  centuries  that 
are  to  be  ?  Why  shall  time  be  wasted  in 
helpless,  inane,  and  angular  words  at  all  ? 
Let  us  rather  learn  to  read  the  soul  in  silence, 
and  respect  it. 

Their  boat  was  rocking  on  the  Nile  as 
night  came  on ;  and,  as  the  Arabs  slowly 
rowed  for  the  sandy  shore,  which  she  had 
indicated  with  her  hand  as  the  place  of  the 
hidden  tomb,  she  said  to  the  man  at  her  side, 
in  her  quiet  and  fragmentary  way  :  — 

"  Yes,  Christ  surely  raised  the  dead.  And 
do  you  not  see  that  Egj'pt  anticipated  all 
that.'  She  believed,  she  knew  that  some 
one  would |Soine  day  walk  this  way  so  full  of 
the  firos  of  life  and  immortality,  so  charged 
with  that  finer  electricity  that  men  call  life, 
about  which  they  talk  so  much  but  about 
which  they  know  nothing  at  all,  as  yet, — 
that  they  laid  their  dead  away  ready  to  rise 
up  in  all  their  glory  on  earth  after  their  long 
waiting  for  the  .Master." 

More,  much  more  she  said ;  and  all  so 
much  more  intelligently  than  what  is  here  so 
imperfectly  recalled  and  written  down  ! 


—  59  — 

It  was  a  woful,  grewsome  spot  of  bone 
and  stone,  of  sand  and  serpents,  where  they 
landed,  and  all  tracked  about  with  the  tracks 
of  wide-footed  and  enormous  lions.  And 
they  had  to  stoop  low,  almost  kneel,  to  enter 
the  mouth  of  the  cavern.  There  was  no 
sign  of  man's  hand  or  foot,  although  she  had 
come  to  it  as  if  walking  a  beaten  road. 

He  had  looked  back  and  down  to  the  men 
as  he  stooped  to  enter  the  gloomy  cavern. 
The  Arabs  had  anchored  in  the  middle  of 
the  river,  —  were  they  afraid  of  lions  ?  It 
was  soon  dark  as  they  passed  on  and  on  in 
a  stooping  posture ;  but  she  assured  him 
that  in  a  little  time  they  would  find  the 
cavern  lighted.  With  calm  assurance  she 
said  that  when  the  great  founder  of  Babylon 
had  been  laid  to  rest  there,  thousands  of 
years  before,  the  walls  were  left  lighted  ;  no, 
not  with  electricity,  but  with  a  phospho- 
rescent light  that  must  endure  while  the 
Nile  endures. 

But  it  was  wearisome,  stooping  and  grop- 
ing so  long  and  so  far.  He  began  to  fear 
that  she  had  made  some  miscalculation  and 
was  lost.  There  were  other  and  deeper 
passes  and  many  tunnels  that  intersected 
this  dark  and  narrow  one.  He  could  feel 
them  as  he  groped  forward  after  her,  —  feel 


—  6o  — 

them,  not  altogether  with  his  hands,  but  with 
that  other  and  finer  feeling  which  she  had, 
by  example,  begun  to  teach  him.  She 
paused,  put  out  her  hand,  took  his  in  hers 
for  the  first  time  since  that  first  meeting  in 
Jerusalem.  But  now  her  hand  trembled,  — 
it  was  almost  cold.  Had  she  indeed  lost  her 
way  ?  Had  she,  with  her  superhuman  knowl- 
edge and  divine  gifts,  really  lost  her  way  in 
that  awful  wilderness  of  tombs?  Had  she 
at  last  lost  her  strength,  her  faith  ?  Sud- 
denly she  stopped  short,  and  said,  '•  There  is 
a  lion  in  here." 

The  man  tried  to  stand  erect  and  take 
som;.'  attitude  of  defence,  if  only  to  encour- 
age her.     There  was  not  room  to  rise  erect. 

But  now  her  blood  began  to  tide  and  flow 
again.  Her  hand  was  warm  once  more  and 
her  heart  strong.  "  We  will  go  forward," 
she  said  as  she  again  led  the  way,  '•  for  to  go 
back  will  be  to  invite  destruction.  He  is  not 
far  away;  I  think  he  is  waiting  in  one  of  the 
side  passes.     There  !  " 

Her  hand  was  again  like  ice,  but  only  for 
a  time.  They  stood  leaning,  looking  forward 
in  the  fearful  darkness  at  two  glittering 
lights,  round,  full,  flaming  lights  tliat  broad- 
ened and  brightened  and  gleamed  and 
glowed  with  a  fierceness,  a  hungr>',  animal 


—  6i  — 

fierceness  that  you  could  feel.  It  was  some- 
thing more  than  light,  it  was  heat.  It  was 
heat  that  chilled,  turned  you  cold  and  froze 
you  to  the  marrow.  The  man,  althoudi 
tramed  to  the  use  of  arms,  and  not  without 
address  in  danger,  had,  ever  since  coming 
into  her  higher  atmosphere,  despised  their 
use  ;  and  so  here  he  stooped  and  groped,  as 
helpless  and  unmanned  as  a  babe. 

But  her  old  faith  came  back,  even  as  she 
looked  into  the  burning  fires  before  her,  and 
with  a  pressure  of  her  warm  hand  she  led 
forward.  The  pass  widened  now  and  was 
roomier  in  every  way.  It  soon  became  a 
sort  of  court,  great  columns  of  red  and  gray 
and  blue  granite  propping  the  mountains 
above.  On  the  outer  edge  of  this  court  lay 
the  huge  lion,  his  nose  on  his  paws,  his  eyes, 
his  terribly  beautiful  eyes  only,  giving  the 
least  sign  of  life  or  action.  But  for  those 
eyes  of  fire  and  flame,  he,  too,  might  have 
been  counted  as  one  of  the  thousand  images 
that  kept  attendance  on  the  great  Babylon- 
ian who  sat  his  throne  in  robes  of  state  in 
the  vast,  wide  court  far  beyond. 

That  distant  inner  court  was  still  lighted, 
as  she  had  said,  after  all  the  thousands  of 
years ;  and  there  the  mighty  hunter  of  Baby- 
lon  had   sat   his    golden    and   marble   and 


—  62  — 

granite  throne  as  time  rolled  by,  resting  and 
resting  and  serenely  waiting  the  resurrection. 
The  shapely  columns,  in  all  their  comeliness 
and  strength,  stood  out  before  the  far-off 
light  in  stately  splendor. 

Miriam  did  not  pause  for  one  moment. 
She  held  the  man's  hand  tight  and  close,  to 
make  certain  that  he,  too,  should  keep  right 
on  as  she  might  lead.  The  lion  did  not 
move ;  he  did  not  even  lift  his  eyes  as  they 
drew  near.  But  suddenly  his  tail  whipped 
slightly  in  the  dust;  theji  the  woman  led  a 
little  to  the  left,  leaving  a  column  between 
her  path  and  the  paws  of  the  lion.  The 
huge  beast  seemed  pleased  with  this  slight 
concession ;  and  only  noting  that  they  kept 
straight  on,  knowing  surely  that  there  was 
but  one  way  out  and  that  he  was  thrown  full 
length  in  the  only  path  of  exit,  he  awaited 
results  with  that  dignity  which  is  born  of 
boundless  strength  and  absolute  assurance. 
He  could  afford  to  wait  just  a  little. 

"Yes,  here  is  faith  for  you;  certainty  of 
immortality  on  earth.  Look  !  Nimrod,  the 
mighty  hunter,  armed  and  ready  for  battle 
with  beasts  of  the  forest,  as  of  old  !  He  has 
only  been  resting  here  all  these  centuries, 
ready  to  rise  up  and  begin  life  again  just  as 
he  left  off  when  he  lay  down  to  die  ;  as  we 
all  shall." 


-63- 

She  had  forgotten  the  lion  in  this  supreme 
moment  to  which  she  had  looked  forward  so 
long,  and,  possibly  at  times,  with  some 
doubt.  But  she  was  now  certain  that  Egypt 
had  been  not  only  the  mother  of  all  ancient 
civilization,  but  the  mother  of  Babylon's 
founder  and  the  burial-place  of  her  mighty 
dead  for  ages. 

Reverently  she  approached  the  foot  of  the 
lofty  throne  and  kneeled  on  the  polished  red 
granite  below,  where  reached  the  staff,  the 
long  beam  of  the  hunter's  spear,  still  clutched 
in  his  right  hand,  and  ready  for  use  when  he 
should  rise  again. 

How  long  they  meditated  there,  in  that 
soft  and  hallowed  light  and  holy  perfume  of 
the  past,  no  one  can  say.  There  are  times 
that  despise  time,  that  throw  time  away 
as  a  drunken  spendthrift  throws  coins  away ; 
and  there  is  an  intoxication  of  the  soul  and 
senses  at  times  like  this  that  puts  the  intox- 
ication of  the  body,  even  from  the  rarest 
wines,  to  the  blush. 

Suddenly  there  was  a  low,  slow,  deep 
rumble.  It  seemed  as  if  the  cavern,  or  court 
of  the  kingly  dead,  began  to  rock,  and  roll, 
and  shake  and  tremble  ;  then  a  roar  ! 

It  rolled,  bounded,  echoed,  rebounded, 
filled  the  place  and  all  places,  all  the  passes, 


-64- 

got  lost,  could  not  find  its  way  out,  came 
back,  bounded  from  wall  to  wall,  from  floor 
to  ceiling,  and  finally  went  back  and  moaned 
and  died  in  that  lion's  monstrous  jaws  and 
tawny  mane. 

He  rose  up,  came  forward,  and  then,  as  if 
he  had  only  been  jesting  at  first  in  a  sort  of 
suppressed  whisper,  he  roared  again,  again 
and  again. 

Five  steps  of  polished  red  granite  of  the 
throne  of  the  mighty  dead  with  spear  in 
hand  ;  but  they  made  it  at  a  single  bound, 
she   to  the  left  and  he  to  the  right. 

The  man  was  about  to  pluck  the  spear 
from  the  dark  and  dusty  hand  and  do  battle 
for  the  woman  he  deified ;  but  she  looked 
him  in  the  face  across  the  face  of  the  king, 
and  he  bowed  his  head  and  stepped  back  in 
silence,  as  htr  now  burning  hand  reached 
further  and  fell  familiarly  on  the  outstretched 
left  hand  of  the  mighty  hunter  where  it 
rested  on  the  arm  of  the  throne. 

Was  it  a  halo  about  her  head  .'  Was  it 
divine  fire  that  flamed  from  her  burning 
hand?  Nay,  no  questions.  They  cannot 
be  answered  here.  We  may  only  know  that 
some  subtle  essence  —  fire  ?  magnetism  ?  elec- 
tricity ?  —  flowed  and  swept  and  shot  from 
her  hand,  from  her  body,  to  his  body.     And 


-65- 

then  the  mighty  hunter  was  on  his  feet.  As 
the  hon  laid  his  long,  strong  paw  on  the 
third  step  of  the  throne,  with  his  tail  whipped 
back  in  the  air  and  his  two  terrible  hinder 
legs  bent  low  and  gathered  for  a  leap  at  the 
woman's  throat,  the  spear  was  in  place ; 
face  to  face  the  lion  and  his  master,  once 
more  and  at  last  after  all  these  thousands  of 
years  !  And  the  lion  knew  his  master.  He 
knew  him  only  from  tradition ;  but  the  story 
of  his  powers  had  come  down  to  him  with 
his  very  blood,  and  he  knew  his  kingly 
master  when  he  met  him,  even  in  the  house 
of  death. 

Sullenly,  slowly,  and  with  a  dignity  worthy 
the  occasion  and  the  two  mighty  kings,  the 
lion  dragged,  dragged,  as  if  he  had  to  drag 
it  down  by  force,  that  great,  ponderous  paw. 
It  literally  tore  the  granite,  but  he  got  it 
down.  He  got  his  eyes  down  from  the  eyes 
of  the  dead ;  and  then  sidewise,  slowly, 
gracefully,  grandly,  with  long  and  stately 
strides,  only  the  quivering  of  his  flanks  tell- 
ing of  his  anger,  he  bowed  his  head  and  left 
the  court  and  crept  from  the  fearful  cavern. 
And  when  they  had  ceased  to  look  and  listen 
to  make  certain  he  was  surely  gone,  the  dead 
was  sitting  there  as  at  first. 


X.  —  THE   VOICE    OF   TOIL. 

Come,  lean  an  ear,  an  eam3st  ear, 
To  Nature's  breast,  some  stilly  eve, 

And  you  shall  hear,  shall  surely  hear 
The  Carpenter,  and  shall  believe ; 

Shall  surely  hear,  shall  hear  for  aye,  who  will, 

The  patient  strokes  of  Christ  resounding  still. 

The  thud  of  loom,  the  hum  of  wheel, 

That  steady  stroke  of  carpenter  I 
And  was  this  all  ?     Did  God  reveal 

No  gleam  of  light  to  Him,  to  her  ? 
No  gleam  of  hopeful  light,  sweet  toiling  friend, 
Save  that  which  bumeth  dimly  at  the  end. 

That  beggar  at  the  rich  man's  gate  ! 

That  rich  man  moaning  down  in  hell ! 
And  all  life's  pity,  all  life's  hate  ! 

Yea,  toil  lay  on  Him  like  a  spell. 
Stop  still  and  think  of  Chnst,  of  Mary  there, 
Her  lifted  face  but  one  perpetual  prayer. 

I  can  but  hope  at  such  sore  time. 
When  all  her  soul  went  out  so  fond, 

She  touched  the  very  stars  sublime 

And  took  some  sense  of  worlds  beyond  ; 

Ar;  ■  •  ever  toil  and  wait 

Ti  ,U  God's  star-built  gate. 

And  He  so  silent,  patient,  sad. 

As  seeing  all  man's  sorrows  through  ! 

How  could  the  Christ  be  wholly  glad 
To  know  l.fe's  pathos  as  He  knew, — 

To  know,  and  know  that  all  the  beauteous  years 

Man  still  will  waste  in  battle,  blood,  and  tears  f 


-67- 

Etiough  of  antiquity,  of  dust,  and  of  the 
dead;  enough  of  speculation^  of  groping  in 
the  darkness  and  of  guess-work  j  enough  of 
idlejiess.  Turn  we  now  to  toil.  Enough, 
and  more  than  enough  of  the  old;  turn  we 
710W  to  the  new,  —  to  follow  the  stroke  of  the 
Carpenter'' s  Son,  the  sound  of  Mary''s  loom, 
or  the  voice  of  the  dove  in  the  olive-trees. 

Bict  one  word  before  biddijig  a  long  adieu 
to  the  old  world  and  this  strange,  strong 
woman  of  the  old. 

I  do  not  say  or  even  suggest  that  she  was 
the  reincar7iation  of  that  Miriam  who  was 
made  "  leprous  white  "  because  of  her  anger 
with  her  brother  wheft  he  married  "  the 
Ethiopian  woman.''''  I  know  nothing  at  all 
about  such  thi?igs.  Bid  I  am^  permitted  to 
believe  that  our  business  is  with  this  world 
mainly,  and  with  the  things  of  this  world; 
that  other  worlds  have  their  own,  and  are 
and  ought  to  be  concerned  mainly  with  their 
own  ;  that  it  is  a  fact  and  a  very  practical 
fact,  that  "  the  kingdojn  of  heaven  is  at 
handy 

Immortality?  Certain  of  it.  Biit  it  is 
here.  Individuality  in  the  next  life  ?  Cer- 
tain of  it,  if  a  grain  and  not  a  husk.  As 
no  atom  of  earth  perishes,  so  shall  no  soul 
perish   or  lose  its  personality .      The  real 


—  68  — 

acorn,  the  real  grain  of  wheat  does  not  per- 
ish or  lose  its  identity  in  dust.  It  is  only 
the  worthless  grain  and  the  husk  and  shell 
that  passes  back  to  the  common  mould. 

So,  then,  if  you  luant  immortality,  make 
it.  If  you  want  your  soul  saved,  make  it 
worth  saving. 

These  thoughts,  dear  tn  mind,  are  not  in- 
truded upon  any  one,  and  are  but  timidly 
and  feebly  let  fall  here  as  ^'  the  still,  small 
rain.' 


I\  LARGE  solemnity  like  twilight,  almost 
like  night,  had  settled  down  on  Miriam  and 
the  man  also,  on  their  return  to  the  vicinity  of 
Cairo.  He  knew  that  work  was  now  before 
him,  and  he  was  glad  of  that.  But  would 
she  be  at  his  side  ?  There  could  be  no  toil 
to  wear)'  where  she  was.  There  could  be  no 
rest,  no  light,  no  life,  nothing  for  him  where 
she  was  not. 

He  tried  to  be  verj-  honest  with  himself, 
with  her.  But  think  it  all  over  as  he  might, 
recall  each  act  and  utterance,  yet  in  all  their 
intercourse  he  could  find  nothing  on  which 
to  hang  a  hope  that  she  would  be  with  him 
to  the  end,  —  be  his  own.  And  then  she  was 
so  silent,  so  sadly  silent  of  late,  all  the  time. 


-69- 

True,  she  was  not  strong,  strong  of  body ; 
for  as  her  soul  grew  strong  her  body  grew 
weak.  Even  Httle  threads  of  silver  had 
wound  themselves  through  her  heavy  meshes 
of  midnight  hair,  and  her  glorious  face  was 
wan  and  pallid  as  the  moonlight  in  which 
they  sat  by  the  deep-red  Nile  this  last  night 
in  Egypt.  But  he  loved  her  all  the  more  for 
that.  The  more?  — how  could  that  have 
been.?  Let  us  say  with  a  tenderness  that 
was  new  and  holy. 

But  his  heart  was  bursting  for  some  sight, 
some  sound.  Would  she  let  him  go,  and  go 
alone,  with  no  assurance  that  she  would  fol- 
low and  follow  soon,  —  be  with  him  in  heart, 
and  soul  too,  all  the  time  ? 

He  would  put  the  matter  to  the   test  at 
once.     As  we  have  seen,  he  was  not  given  to 
words  any  more  than  was  she. 
"  You  know  I  love  you,  Miriam." 
"  I  know." 
"  And  you  ?  " 

Her  two  hands  lifted  up  and  pushed  back 
the  great  mass  of  black  hair  from  her  fine, 
white  face,  and  it  came  out  to  him  like  the 
moon  of  heaven,  and  with  her  face  turned 
full  to  his  she  said,  slowly,  softly,  and  so 
very  sweetly,  — 

"  I  love  you,  John  Morton." 


—  jo- 
lt was  the  first  time  she  had  spoken  his 
name  so,  his  plain,  simple  name. 

The  hands  remained  above  and  about  the 
face,  framing  it  like  a  face  of  the  Madonna. 

"  You,  you  will  be  mine  .''  " 

"  Yes." 

*'  God  bless  you,  Miriam,  for  that  promise. 
But  you  know  I  go  now  to  begin  my  work  in 
the  New  World.  When  will  you  be  mine? 
Where  ?     At  what  time  ?  " 

*'  Time  ?  "  Her  hands  fell  down  and  lay  so 
heavily  in  her  lap  he  dared  not  try  to  touch 
them,  and  she  said,  looking  away  beyond,  as 
if  at  the  ghost  of  Thebes  and  her  hundred 
gates,  "  Time  ?     Not  in  time  —  eternity." 

He  sprang  up  and  threw  his  arms  tightly 
together  across  his  breast. 

*'  And  this  is  your  resolution  .''  " 

"  Why,  dare  I  be  idly  happy  with  all  this 
misery  of  earth  before  me .''  Think  of  that 
blind  woman  with  the  three  naked  children 
yesterday  in  the  street ;  she  had  the  arms 
and  the  mummy-head  of  some  ancestor,  sell- 
ing them  for  a  bit  of  bread,  here  in  fruitful 
Egypt  I  For  them,  no  blame.  They  know 
no  better.  You  and  I  know  better.  '  For 
unto  whomsoever  much  is  given,  of  him 
shall  be  much  required.'  The  cross  and  the 
crown  are  bound  together.     Let   us  go  our 


—  71  — 

ways,  help  to  make  the  crooked  straight,  and 
then,  in  some  after  life  —  " 

Her  voice  was  inaudible  now.  Her  face 
sank  low  and  was  hidden  from  his  sight ;  but 
he  saw  hot  tears  falling  on  her  hand  ;  and 
she  was  sacred  and  holy  to  him  as  if  a  halo 
had  descended  upon  her. 

Then  she  rose  up  slowly,  her  face  still 
bent  down,  and  giving  her  two  hands,  said: 

"  Go ;  do  your  work,  do  good." 

"  And  you  ?  " 

"  I,  I  will  come  to  you  —  sometime ;  but  go, 
go  now." 

What  a  tower,  what  a  pillar  of  fire  was 
that  promise  ;  "  I  will  come  to  you  —  some- 
time !  Go,  go  now.  I  will  come  to  you  — 
sometime.     Good-by !  " 

It  was  a  Nile  night.  To  those  who  have 
lived  by  the  Nile  nothing  more  need  be  said 
to  describe  the  sensuous  scene  and  air.  To 
those  who  have  not  dwelt  there  the  descrip- 
tion would  be  as  idle  as  ungrateful.  There 
were  palm  trees  in  the  ancient  garden  by 
which  the  lion-like  river  crept  in  all  his  sinu- 
ous and  supple  splendor.  The  moon  made 
little  paths  and  patches  and  quivering  mo- 
saics of  silver  all  up  and  down  the  sands  to 
walk  upon. 

A  boat  with  a  single  oarsman  rocked  and 


—  72  — 

rested  in  the  lotus  leaves  by  the  level  bank 
above,  and  at  the  end  of  the  garden  a  single 
nude,  black  boatman.  It  was  a  very  quiet 
place.  No  boat  had  landed  there  in  all  the 
time  they  had  lived  here. 

He  turned  away,  passed  down  the  garden 
with  slow  step,  empty-handed,  alone,  and 
with  the  one  word  "  Ciood-by  "  on  his  lips. 
They  could  not  have  uttered  more  than  that 
one  word.  His  resolution  was  almost  fail 
ing  him,  for  his  heart  was  breaking.  Then 
suddenly  he  turned  about,  tiew  back  to  her, 
threw  out  his  hands  and  cried,  "(iood-by, 
Miriam  I  " 

Mechanically  and  slowly  and  with  kindly 
eyes  and  half-parted  lips,  she  took  his  out- 
stretched hands  in  silence.  He  pulled  her 
to  him,  pulled  her  violently,  pressed  her  to 
his  heart  as  his  right  hand  swept  swiftly 
about  her  body,  pressed  his  lips  to  her  proud 
lip)s  as  she  struggled  and  as  her  head  fell 
back  in  her  effort  to  escape;  and  then  he 
set  her  hastily  in  her  place  and  was  gone. 

Intensely,  triumphantly  beat  his  heart  as 
he  leaped  into  his  boat,  sped  away,  and  has 
tened  to  embark  for  other  lands.  And  long, 
long,  as  he  voyaged  away  he  tried  to  believe, 
tried  to  hope,  that  there  had  been  at  least 
the  faintest  thrill  of  response,  and  that  he 
had  not  been  entirely  a  savage. 


XL  — THE  FOUNDATION  STONES- 

Be  thou  not  angered.     Go  thy  way 

From  God's  high  altar  to  thy  foe ; 
Nor  think  to  kneel  and  truly  pray, 

Till  thou  art  reconciled  and  know 
Thou  hast  forgiven  him ;  as  thou  must  be 
Forgiven  of  the  sins  that  burthen  thee. 

And  if  thine  eye  tempt  thee  to  shame 

Turn  thou  aside ;  pluck  it  away  ! 
And  with  thy  right  hand  deal  the  same, 

Nor  tempt  thy  soul  to  sin  this  day. 
Yea,  thou  art  very  weak.     Thou  couldst  not  make 
One  hair  turn  white  or  black,  for  thine  own  sake. 

And  whosoever  smite  thy  cheek, 
Turn  thou  that  he  may  smite  again. 

The  truly  brave  are  truly  meek, 

And  bravely  bear  both  shame  and  pain. 

They  slay,  if  truly  brave  men  ever  slay. 

Their  foes,  with  sweet  forgiveness,  day  by  day. 

And  if  a  man  would  take  thy  coat, 
Give  him  thy  cloak  and  count  it  meet. 

Bread  cast  on  waters  can  but  float 
In  sweet  forgiveness  to  thy  feet  ; 

So  thou,  by  silent  act  like  this,  shalt  preach 

Such  sermons  as  not  flame  nor  sword  can  teach. 

Lay  not  up  treasures  for  yourselves 
On  earth,  and  stint  and  starve  the  soul 

By  heaping  granaries  and  shelves 
And  high  store-houses ;  for  the  whole 

Of  wealth  is  this  :  to  grow  and  grow  and  grow 

In  faith ;  to  know  and  ever  seek  to  know. 


—  74  — 

Therefore  give  not  too  much  of  thought 
For  thy  to-morrows.     Birds  that  call 

Sweet  melodies  i>ow  not,  reap  nut, 
And  yet  the  Father  feedcth  all. 

Therefore  toil  trusting,  loving  ;  watch  and  pray, 

And  pray  in  !>ecret ;  pray  not  long,  but  say : 

Give  us  our  daily  bread  this  day, 

'  -e, 

l.c  ..ly, 

Deliver  us,  that  we  may  Uve ; 
For  thine  the  kingdom  is,  has  ever  been. 
And  thme  the  power,  the  glory,  and  —  Amen  ! 


O 


N  a  huge  mass  of  hills,  hills  heaped  and 
banked  and  tumbled  on  top  of  hills  by  the 
great  sea  of  seas,  and  above  the  Golden 
Gate,  the  man  at  last  pitched  his  tent  and 
began  to  build  his  city. 

Water  percolated  through  the  broken 
rocks  here  and  there  and  formed  little 
pools,  where  poor,  half-starved  cattle  and 
sheep  had  gathered  for  half  a  century  and 
made  dismal  moan  for  provender  as  they 
trampled  the  rich,  black  mould  into  unsightly 
masses  of  mud. 

It  was  a  doleful,  grewsome  place  indeed, 
if  you  looked  near  about  you  or  down  into 
the  mud.  But  to  look  up  to  the  stars  !  To 
look  down  to  the  bay  of  San  Francisco; 
look  out  through  the  Golden  Gate  on  the 
great   sea,   to   count   the   moving   ships,  to 


—  75  — 

behold  the  fleets  of  snow-white  clouds  that 
drew  in  at  the  sunset  from  the  Japan  seas, 
to  feel  the  keen,  cool  winds  of  Alaska  in 
July !  Ah,  it  was  a  glorious  place  if  you 
could  only  keep  your  face  toward  the  sea  or 
up  toward  heaven,  and  your  heart  in  your 
duty  to  man. 

And  what  heaps  of  stone  !  —  stones  from 
the  topmost  peak  of  his  hundred  acres  to 
the  bottom  limit  of  his  possessions ;  stones 
enough  for  the  material  foundations  of  a 
large  city  indeed  !  As  for  its  moral  founda- 
tions, no  city  ever  has  been  built,  or  ever 
can  be  built,  to  endure  with  any  other  than 
the  precepts  at  the  head  of  this  chapter,  — 
the  Sermon  on  the  Mount. 

Of  course  it  would  have  been  a  pleasant 
thing  if  this  man  could  have  chosen  a  rich 
valley  by  some  great  river,  where  commerce, 
in  the  spirit  of  the  age,  and  enterprising 
people  with  quick  discernment  of  advantage 
would  come  his  way  at  once.  It  would  be 
pleasant  to  write  down  the  peace  and  rest 
and  swift  prosperity  that  would  have  fol- 
lowed such  a  choice  of  location.  But  we 
have  ugly  facts,  not  pleasant  fancy,  to 
confront  and  deal  with  now. 

The  man  took  the  mountain-top,  and  at 
the  cost  of  all  he  had  saved  in  more  than 


-76- 

half  a  lifetime,  simply  because  a  place  in 
the  valley  was  not  to  be  had  for  what  he 
had  to  give. 

'•  All  the  better,"  he  said.  ••  1 1  1  succeed  on 
these  steeps  and  heaps  of  stone,  the  greater 
good  and  the  braver  will  be  my  lesson  to 
the  world.  The  main  thing  is  to  teach  and 
to  prove  that  all  men  are  good  or  trying  to 
be  good ;  and  that  all  the  world  and  all 
things  in  it  are  beautiful  or  tr\'ing  to  be 
beautiful.  I  shall  plant  roses  here  where  I 
find  thorns,  fruit  where  I  find  thistles;  and 
if  I  can  make  this  most  barren  and  most  un- 
sightly of  all  places  on  earth  beautiful,  my 
example  will  not  be  lost."  And  his  heart 
was  all  the  time  with  Her,  and  all  the  time 
he  kept  saying  over  and  over  her  last  words: 
"  I  will  come  to  you  —  sometime." 

His  heap  of  steep  hills  sloped  to  the  sun 
and  the  sea ;  but  back  in  the  rear  a  deep 
and  wooded  and  watered  canyon  bent  like  a 
scimitar  and  shut  out  all  the  world  behind 
him.  It  was  a  wild  and  a  glorious  place; 
wolves,  catamounts,  hosts  of  wild  creatures 
housed  there,  to  say  nothing  of  the  birds 
that  sang  and  reared  their  pretty  broods  in 
the  redwood  groves  and  groves  of  madrona, 
willow,  and  bay  trees.  But  he  built  his  little 
house  out  in  the  sun  with  the  Golden  Gate 


—  77  — 

in  sight,  and  here  he  began  to  plant  trees, 
and  to  plant  and  to  plant  and  to  plant.  He 
would  first  make  it  attractive,  and  then  in- 
vite thinkers,  poets,  men  of  mind  who  had  a 
mind  to  rest,  to  come  and  sit  down  and 
share  it  with  him ;  then  the  world  would  see 
and  learn  and  live.  Then  She  would  come  ! 
And  why  did  he  begin  and  toil  on  so  entirely 
alone  ?  He  did  not  begin  alone  ;  or  did  not 
propose  to  do  that  at  first. 

He  had  found,  after  much  care,  a  small 
party  of  men  with  purposes  not  unlike  his 
own.  But  when  it  came  to  the  toil,  the 
privations,  the  weary  prospect  of  long  wait- 
ing for  roads  to  be  built,  for  trees  to  grow 
up  and  bear  fruit,  for  the  world  to  come 
that  way  and  admire  and  praise,  they  melted 
away,  one  after  one,  and  went  down  to  the 
city  by  the  sea  and  left  him  all  alone.  It 
would  be  tedious,  even  if  it  would  be  cred- 
ible, to  tell  how  terribly  hard  he  toiled.  But 
there  was  fierce  excitement  in  closing  in  and 
making  clean  the  muddy  springs  of  water, 
in  training  the  pure,  trickling  streams  down 
the  tortuous  new  roadside  where  roses  were 
newly  set  by  the  newly  built  wall.  To  see 
the  response  of  the  roses !  real  gratitude  in- 
deed !  And  then  the  down-trodden  grass  — 
how  glad  it  was  to  Hft  up  its  head  after 
forty  years ! 


-78- 

But  then  at  last  he  must  have  help.  He 
could  earn  a  little  in  various  little  ways,  and 
would  employ  some  one  to  help  him  in  his 
persistent  toil.     Hut  whom  ? 

When  we  employ  a  man  we  must  not 
think  entirely  of  ourselves.  We  must  think 
of  his  good  as  well  as  our  own.  He  needs 
this  consideration. 

From  far  across  San  Pablo  Bay,  the  lights 
from  the  watch-towers  of  the  Penitentiary 
shot  sharp  and  continuously  in  at  the  door 
of  our  silent  city-builder.  This  vexed  him 
sorely  at  first.  It  made  him  miserable  to 
think  of  the  misery  there  when  he  so  needed 
rest. 

But  at  last  his  soul  ascended  to  the  duty 
before  it.  He  went  to  the  prison  warden 
and  engaged  that  each  month  he  should 
send  him  the  first  discharged  convict  who 
desired  work.  The  Hrst  to  come  was  a  poor 
drunkard.  It  was  not  quite  an  ideal  life, 
this  sleeping  in  the  same  little  room  with  an 
illiterate  drunkard.  True,  the  poor,  sullen 
inebriate  did  not  know  that  his  histor)'  was 
known  to  the  city-builder,  but  still  he  was 
ugly  and  cross.  He  did  not  like  the  place; 
and  so  he  soon  disappeared,  taking  what  he 
could  lay  hands  on. 

The  next  was  a  bright  young  man  who 


—  79  — 

had  been  a  book-keeper,  and  stolen  money 
from  his  employer. 

Thinking  his  history  unknown,  he  frankly 
told  it  the  first  night.  They  became  friends. 
When  he  drew  his  first  wages  he  went  down 
into  the  city,  into  the  sea,  as  it  were,  and 
was  drowned,  —  drowned  first  in  alcohol  and 
then  found  dead  in  the  bay. 

The  third  was  a  witless  man  and  an  honest 
man,  who  insisted  on  telling  his  story,  hat  in 
hand,  before  he  would  sit  down.  He  had 
been  convicted  of  stealing  cattle,  and  did 
not  assert  his  innocence  till  he  stood  with 
his  month's  wages  in  his  hand  to  set  out  for 
the  gold  mines  of  Alaska. 

Taken  altogether,  these  experiments  were 
in  no  way  fruitless  nor  discouraging.  But 
the  man's  little  hoard  was  expended.  Now 
and  again  he  wrought  entirely  alone.  And 
as  he  toiled,  he  took  the  three  convicts  and 
their  conduct  under  the  closest  considera- 
tion. And  the  prayer  of  Jesus  Christ,  the 
one  prayer,  as  taught  him  by  that  clear- 
eyed  woman  from  the  gates  of  Jerusalem, 
kept  in  his  mind  and  before  him  always: 
"  Lead  us  not  into  temptation !  Lead  us 
not  into  temptation  !  Lead  us  not  into 
temptation ! " 

He  had  tempted  the  first  unhappy  convict 


—  So- 
to fall.     The  poor,  weak-minded,  and  sullen 
man  could  not  resist  the  temptation  to  take 
the  man's  horse  and  ride  away  in  the  night. 
He  was,  then,  himself  the  guilty  man. 

As  for  the  second  man,  he,  too,  had  been 
tempted,  —  tempted  even  to  his  death  by 
Society  and  the  State. 

As  for  the  third  man,  no  better  had  been 
found.  Indeed,  ver)'  many  worse  men  than 
he  had  been  encountered. 

By  this  time  vultures  began  to  gather 
around  and  sit  on  the  rocks.  They  said: 
"  This  man  with  his  non-resistance  and 
tum-the-other-cheek  must  fail,  die ;  and  some 
one  must  pick  his  bones." 

This  was  an  ugly  fact,  but  who  was  to 
blame  ?  "  Be  ye  wise  as  serpents,  but  as 
harmless  as  doves." 

Would  a  really  wise  man  have  come  for 
ward  and  publicly  and  continuously  declared, 
in  the  midst  of  a  people  who  were  devoted 
entirely  to  money-getting,  that  he  would  give 
to  the  man  who  took  his  coat,  his  cloak  also? 

He  was  tempting  some  weak  men  beyond 
their  power  to  resist.  He  was  literally  call- 
ing out  to  the  vultures  to  come  from  the 
four  parts  of  the  world  and  wait  on  the  rocks 
and  crags  for  him  to  die,  when  they  should 
gorge  on  his  remains. 


8i 


People  came  and  went  as  the  years  went 
by,  —  some  queer  people,  some  curious  peo- 
ple, and  some  good  people ;  or  rather  some 
people  who  had  had  better  fortune,  better 
opportunities  to  be  good  than  those  who  are 
called  bad. 

*'  Now,  look  here  !  "  said  an  honest  and 
observing  man  one  day  to  the  city-builder, 
digging  on  his  hill,  "  all  this  that  you  are  try- 
ing to  do  has  been  done  before,  or  at  least 
attempted.  You  are,  perhaps,  a  good  man, 
a  very  good  man ;  but  you  are  not  the  only 
good  man  that  has  been.  You  may  build 
and  build,  but  the  sea  of  selfishness  will  roll 
over  your  city  and  all  your  enterprises  here 
when  you  die,  before  you  can  be  carried  to 
the  grave." 

This  had  been  said  in  answer  to  his  com- 
plaints about  the  vultures  that  continually 
hovered  around.  He  had,  in  his  distress, 
cried  out  to  this  good  man,  and  said  :  — 

"In  the  olden  time  the  ravens  fed  the 
prophets ;  but  now  it  seems  to  me  that  the 
prophets  must  feed  not  only  the  ravens  but 
the  vultures  also." 

And  it  must  be  conceded  that  he  had  the 
most  substantial  reasons  for  complaining. 

For  example  :  A  stout  German,  whose 
lands  shut  him  out  from  the  city,  nailed  up 
6 


his  road,  and  demanded  an  acre  of  land  for 
the  right  of  way.  The  man  gave  him  a  deed 
of  three  acres.  But  this  is  only  one  example 
of  his  folly  and  the  persistence  of  the  vul- 
tures, and  we  hasten  on. 

And  yet  these  people  on  this  mountain- 
side were  in  some  sense  better  than  those  in 
the  valley  below,  and  those  in  the  valley 
below  were  better  than  those  in  the  city 
beyond. 

How  pitiful,  how  piteously  pitiful  it  all  is, 
as  things  now  are  !  This  man,  worn  out  at 
last,  bodily  and  mentally,  sat  down  and  tried 
to  see  light  beyond.  There  was  no  li.'^ht 
to  be  seen.  He  saw  that  he  would  ulti- 
mately be  ground  to  dust  between  the  hard 
and  selfish  elements  that  environed  him.  He 
might  carr)'  his  experiments  forward  tc  the 
end  of  his  own  natural  life ;  he  might  not  be 
crucified  before  his  time  to  die ;  yet  he  fore- 
saw clearly  that  his  verj'  dust  and  ashes 
would  be  divided  among  those  about  him  at 
his  death,  and  all  his  hopes  and  plans  and 
persistent  toil  of  body  and  mind  would  be 
in  a  day  as  if  he  had  never  been. 

He  began  to  search  the  book  of  Nature  for 
some  possible  solution  of  the  hard  problem 
before  him  ;  and  he  began  to  see  that  Nature 
had  in  some  way  or  other  protected  what- 


-so- 
ever she  wished  to  perpetuate.     Even   the 
timid  rabbit,  that  sat  with  wide  eyes   and 
large  ears   under  the   trees   which  he   had 
planted  on  his  hillsides,  was  not  neglected. 
His   coat  turned  gray  each  season  as   the 
grass   turned  gray;    and   when   the   winter 
approached,  with  a  sprinkle  of  snow  on  the 
hillside,   the   keen-eyed    hawk   that    looked 
down  out  of  the  snow-cloud  above  saw  that 
the  rabbit  had  a  new  coat  as  white  as  the 
snows  about  him,  and  that  it  required  the 
keenest  of  keen  eyes  to  distinguish  him  from 
the  tufts  of  grass  and  snow. 

"  Yet  I,"  said  the  man  to  himself,  "  with 
all  the  lessons  of  Nature  before  me,  have 
dared  to  lay  my  breast  bare  to  all  men  ;  and 
they  have  pierced  me  through  and  through." 
One  day  a  small  man,  with  a  gray  beard, 
came  up  the  hill  meekly  washing  his  hands, 
and  in  a  mild  and  sympathetic  voice  said  : 

"You  seem  discouraged.  Let  me  assist 
you.  I  have  watched  you  and  your  work 
with  the  deepest  interest,  and  now  that  you 
seem  so  weary  I  have  come  to  save  you. 
Yes,  I  am  a  real-estate  agent.  There  are 
too  many  real-estate  agents  in  the  town,  — 
three  hundred  of  them.  There  are  nearly 
two  hundred  lawyers;  there  are  more  than 
fifty   preachers;   there   are   twice   as   many 


-84- 

doctors,  —  all  living  on  a  small  city.  But  I 
have  come  to  save  you.  I  will  sell  some  of 
your  land.  This  will  give  you  money  to  go 
ahead.     I  have  your  permission  ? " 

The  small,  gray  man  had  not  paused  for 
answer,  nor  did  he  wait  for  a  single  word, 
but  again  washing  his  hands,  and  smiling 
again  his  sickly  smile,  and  still  talking  on  in 
a  soft  and  sympathetic  tone,  he  crept  back- 
ward, and  crawled  like  a  serpent  down  the 
hill  to  sell  the  land. 

Now,  there  is  nothing  in  this  incident  worth 
telling.  The  only  excuse  for  it  is  the  ugly 
truth  that  these  idle,  cunning  men,  made 
desperate  by  competition,  are  crowding  every 
city,  and  plying  their  trade  to  the  very  verge 
of  crime,  —  most  miserable  themselves  and 
making  others  miserable.  What  a  jar  of 
Eg)'ptian  vipers  is  the  heart  and  soul  of 
society  to-day ! 


XII.  —  THE   FIRST   LAW   OF   GOD. 

Look  back,  beyond  the  Syrian  sand, 
Beyond  the  awful  flames  that  burst 

O'er  Sinai  !     That  first  command 
Outside  the  gates,  God's  very  first. 

Was  this  :  "  Thou  shalt  in  sweat  and  constant  toil 

Eat  bread  till  thou  returnest  to  the  soil." 

"V 

1  OU  have  a  rough  place  here,  it  seems 
to  me,"  said  a  man  with  bag  and  gun  and  dog 
as  he  came  around  a  crag  up  out  of  the 
canyon  one  evening.  There  was  a  tone  of 
derision  in  the  voice  of  the  hunter.  He  was 
from  the  city,  and  seemed  to  think  the  man 
who  was  trying  to  plant  a  little  olive-tree 
in  a  cleft  of  the  crag  ought  to  not  only  let 
him  have  the  shooting  of  the  birds,  but  a 
better  road  to  flush  them  from. 

Our  city-builder  was  weary,  and  for  a 
moment  was  angry.  But  lifting  his  face 
from  his  work  he  laid  the  little  olive  by,  and 
slowly  straightening  his  back  he  looked  the 
man  in  the  face,  and  then  looked  about  and 
above,  and  then  said  quietly  as  he  did  so, 
"  Yes,  yes,  it  is  rough  under  foot ;  but  it  is 
as  smooth  overhead  as  any  man's  land." 


—  86  — 

The  hunter  whistled  to  his  dog,  and  left 
the  man  with  the  little  olive-tree  alone  in  his 
clouds.  For  he  did  not  understand ;  and 
we  are  always  afraid  of  that  which  we  do 
not  understand. 

The  lonely  man  on  the  peak  kept  on 
planting  his  olive-trees  in  the  clouds.  He 
thought  of  the  dove  bringing  an  olive- 
branch  in  its  beak,  "plucked  off,"  and 
reflected  that  the  ancients  must  have  planted 
their  loftiest  peaks  in  olive-trees  and  made 
them  tiourish,  and  so  took  heart  a  little. 
He  finished  planting  his  tree,  and  being  very 
weary  and  very  lonely  he  lay  down  by  his 
mattock,  with  his  face  to  the  glorious  Bal- 
boa seas  below,  and  thought  of  Jacob  on 
the  plains  of  Shinar  as  he  pillowed  his  head 
on  a  stone  and  slept  and  dreamed. 

Lo  !  on  the  plains  of  Bethel  lay 
An  outworn  lad,  unhoused,  alone, 

His  couch  the  tawny  mother  clay, 
His  pillow  that  storm-haunted  stone; 

The  hollow  winds  howled  down  the  star-lit  plain,. 

All  white  and  wild  with  highborn  wintry  rain 

Yet  here  God's  ladder  was  let  down, 

Yea,  only  here  for  aye  and  aye  I 
Not  in  the  high-walled,  splendid  town, 

Not  to  the  throned  king  feasting  high. 
But  far  beneath  the  storied  Syrian  stars 
God's  ladder  fell  from  out  the  golden  bars. 


—  87  — 

And  ever  thus.     Take  heart !  to  some 

The  hand  of  fortune  pours  her  horn 
Of  plenty,  smiling  where  they  come  ; 

And  some  to  wit  and  some  to  wealth  are  bom, 
And  some  are  born  to  pomp  and  splendid  ease ; 
But  lo  !  God's  shining  ladder  leans  to  none  of  these. 

The  German  neighbor  on  the  hillside 
below  saw  the  weary  dreamer  through  the 
rift  of  clouds  that  came  driving  in  from 
the  sea  with  the  stars,  and  kindly  came  up 
the  peak  and  awoke  him. 

"  It  won't  pay  you  to  plant  olive-trees 
here.     Why  do  you  do  this.?" 

"  To  make  my  little  portion  of  the  world 
more  beautiful." 

"  Boh !  I  don't  believe  in  beauty ;  dot 
don't  pay." 

"  Then  you  do  not  believe  in  God  ?  " 

"  Veil,  not  in  dot  sort  of  a  God  nohow." 

This  German  had  been  amazed  at  the 
man's  deeding  him  so  much  more  land  than 
he  had  demanded.  He  thought  it  was  a 
mistake  at  first;  and  so  for  months  had 
said  nothing.  But  at  last  he  could  conceal 
his  curiosity  no  longer.  Leaning  over  the 
shoulder  of  the  man  from  whom  he  had 
received  it,  one  Sunday  as  he  sat  reading,  he 
said  :  — 

"My    lawyer,   he    say   when   a   deed    is 


—  88  — 

recorded  it  is  done  with  and  no  one  can 
change  it.  So  that  matter  is  settled  be- 
tween us.  You  owe  me  netting,  and  I  owe 
you  notting.  But  tell  me  why  you  made  it 
three  instead  of  one.*' 

Slowly  the  man  opened  the  iiook  at  the 
Sermon  on  the  Mount  and  quietly  proceeded 
to  read.  He  paused  a  moment  when  he 
came  to  the  31  at  verse;  then  he  read  in  a 
slow,  low,  and  kindly  voice,  and  closing  the 
book,  he  looked  his  neighbor  calmly  in  the 
face  and  repeated  :  ''  And  if  a  man  will  sue 
thee  at  law  and  take  away  thy  coat,  let  him 
have  thy  cloak  also." 

Now  this  big,  hearty  German  was  not  a 
bad  man;  he  was^  in  fact,  far  from  a  bad 
man  as  the  world  goes.  But  this  strange 
new  man  had  tempted  him,  and  the  end  was 
not  yet. 

Meantime  the  people  for  his  city,  to  peo- 
ple his  city,  did  not  come,  save  to  l«Kjk  on 
curiously  and  go  away.  The  City  lieautiful 
was  building  slowly  indeed. 

At  last  one  man  with  much  money  came 
and  proposed  to  build  and  abide,  with  all 
his  household. 

"  And  you  are  certain  it  will  pay  me  ?  " 

"  Perfectly  certain  that  it  will  pay  you 
immensely,  sir." 


-89- 

"  Well,  if  you  are  so  certain  I  can  make 
money  —  " 

"  Stop  !  Who  said  money  ?  I   said  it  will 
pay  you.     But  to  make  money  here  on  these 
rocks  !    Why,  you  might  as  well  try  to  plant 
God's  altar  in  corn,  or  to  grow  wheat  on  the 
pinnacle  of  Saint  Paul's  cross,  as  to  make 
money  on  these  glorious  heights.     No ;  you 
would  be    paid,  but   you  would   take   your 
pay  from  the  heaped-up  gold  of  the  golden 
sunsets  of  the   Golden    Gate ;   from  the  sil- 
ver banks  of  clouds  beyond  ;  from  the  cer- 
tificates of  perfect  health  from  the   far-off 
Japan  seas ;    from   the  satisfaction  of   hav- 
ing built  or  helped  to  build  one,  just  one. 
City   of   Refuge,   where   the   Jews    had    so 
many.     From   these  and  the   like   of  these 
you  would  be  paid   ten   thousand  fold,   my 
friend,  but  you  would  make  no  money." 

"  Well,  I  will  think  it  over,  and  I  may 
come  back." 

He  did  not  come  back ;  and  so  the  world 
kept  on  going  by  the  other  way.  True, 
crowds  came  oftentimes,  —  carriages  and 
carriages,  on  Sundays ;  for  the  drives  were 
good,  the  air  delicious,  the  spectacle  of  the 
seas  and  cities  below  divinely  glorious.  But 
with  the  exception  of  a  painter,  a  poet,  a 
traveller  who  came  to  rest  for  a  few  days, 


—  90  — 

the  City  Beautiful  continued  to  be  unin- 
habited. 

Finally  a  friend  in  Japan  sent  two  little 
Japanese  gentlemen  from  Tokio,  to  serve 
him,  to  be  his  companions,  to  hear  his  phi- 
losophy, to  learn  his  interpretation  of  the 
story  and  teachings  of  Christ.  And  this  was 
good  !     ••  At  last,  at  last !  "  said  the  hermit. 

On  the  third  day  after  they  came  a  big 
Irishman  and  his  followers  came  to  the 
hermit's  cottage. 

•'  We  are  a  committee,"  said  the  leader, 
"  for  the  protection  of  white  labor.  You  are 
a  laboring  man,  and  of  course  will  stand  by 
white  labor.  The  Japs  must  go,  or  they  will 
get  the  worst  of  it." 

The  man  tried  to  protest,  but  all  his  prc^- 
testations  were  of  no  avail.  The  foreigners 
said  their  children  would  stone  the  Japanese 
as  they  went  up  and  down  the  road  if  they 
did  not  leave.  John  Morton  told  his  two 
little  strangers  all,  and  they  quietly  and  with 
scarcely  a  word  gathered  up  their  books, 
bowed  their  heads  sadly,  and  were  gone. 

And  so  ended  the  only  little  day  of  buii> 
light  that  had  broken  through  the  clouds  for 
a  long,  long  time.  They  had  been  so 
humble,  so  willing  to  learn,  so  ready  to  help, 
in   their   helpless  way,  so  patient,  so  filled 


—  91  — 

with  that  dignity  which  is  the  only  humility, 
and  that  humility  which  is  the  only  perfect 
dignity,  that  he  had  learned  to  love  them 
truly  and  deeply.  They  had  had  that  spirit 
of  meekness  in  them  that  could  wash  a 
brother's  feet  and  yet  not  seem  foolish. 
And  when  they  went  away  he  bowed  his 
head  in  his  hands  at  the  table  and  was  well- 
nigh  broken-hearted. 

But  he  took  up  the  Book  after  a  time  and 
read  once  more  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount. 
Then  he  read  it  again.  He  closed  the  lids  a 
little  bit  savagely  after  this  last  reading. 
He  spent  the  next  few  days  in  the  canyon, 
cutting  out  the  poison-oak,  —  a  task  which 
none  other  had  ever  been  willing  to  perform. 

How  weary  in  spirit  he  was !  and  she  had 
not  kept  her  promise  to  come.  How  sore  at 
heart,  how  sick  of  it  all !  He  had  grown 
gray  here  in  a  little  time.  The  end  was  not 
far  off. 

"  Ah,  if  I  could  only  take  this  deep,  cool 
canyon,  with  its  pleasant  waters  and  its  pro- 
found woods,  and  go  to  some  far-away  place  ! 
But  no ;  that  would  be  turning  my  back  on 
the  battle  to  which  God  has  set  my  face.  I 
shall  fight  it  out  here.  Happily,  it  will  not 
be  long  now;  whatever  comes,  I  shall  not 
run  away." 


—  92  — 

The  next  day  was  Sunday.  The  big  Ger- 
man came,  came  alone,  with  his  coat  thrown 
leisurely  over  his  arm.  The  hermit  was  at 
his  little  desk  in  his  study,  as  was  his  habit 
on  this  day. 

*'  Ah,  Mr.  Morton,  Japs  gone,  eh  ?  That 's 
right ;  plenty  of  good  (German  girls  to  be 
had,  and  they  are  lots  better  than  Japs.  But 
I  want  to  see  you  about  your  cutting  down 
the  shade  from  the  water  in  the  canyon.  Of 
course  it  is  on  your  own  ground  ;  but  you  see 
the  water  runs  down  by  me.  I  want  the 
water  kept  cool  for  my  ducks  and  pigs  and 
chickens.  Now,  if  you  cut  down  the  bushes, 
that  lets  in  the  sun,  that  makes  the  water 
warm.  My  lawyer,  he  say  if  you  do  that 
you  must  pay  me." 

"  How  much  pay  do  you  want  ? " 

"  Veil,  Mr.  Morton,  I  will  not  be  hard. 
We  can  agree,  I  think.  Can  you  pay  me  a 
little  now  ?  That  will  bind  the  bargain,  my 
lawyer  say." 

'•  Come  over  into  the  canyon  and  I  will 
pay  you  there." 

"Good,  good!  we  will  get  on.  I  have 
always  tried  to  help  you,  as  you  were  a  new 
settler;  and  now  you  are  going  to  oblige 
me." 

The  man  had  snatched  his  overcoat  from 


—  93  — 

the  wall  and  was  walking  fast ;  the  German 
ran  along  at  his  side. 

The  road  was  a  road  of  roses ;  but  the 
man  walked  too  fast  to  heed  the  roses,  or 
even  hear  the  many  friendly  speeches  which 
the  garrulous  German  was  making  from  time 
to  time,  as  he  came  puffing  on  after  him. 

There  was  a  big  heap  of  stones  on  the 
high  summit  just  before  descending  the 
steep  path  into  the  canyon.  The  sun  was 
warm,  hot.  He  threw  his  heavy  coat  against 
the  high  mound  of  stones  under  the  ohve- 
tree  he  had  planted,  and  hastened  on,  the 
German  at  his  heels. 


XIII.  —  FALLEN    BY    THE    WAY. 

•'  How  shall  man  surely  save  his  soul  ?" 
'  T  was  sunset  by  the  Jordan.    Gates 
Of  light  were  closing,  and  the  whole 

Vast  heaven  hung  darkened  as  the  fates. 
"  How  shall  man  surely  save  his  soul ;  "  he  said. 
As  fell  the  kingly  day,  discrowned  and  dead. 

The  Christ  said  :  "  Hear  this  parable. 

Two  men  set  forth  and  journeyed  fa^it 
To  reach  a  place  ere  darkness  fell 

And  closed  the  gates  ere  they  had  passed ; 
Two  worthy  men,  each  free  alike  of  sin, 
But  one  did  seek  most  sure  to  enter  in. 

"  And  so  when  in  their  path  did  lay 

A  cripple  with  a  broken  staff, 
The  one  did  pass  straight  on  his  way, 

While  one  did  stoop  and  give  the  half 
His  strength,  and  all  his  time  did  nobly  share 
Till  they  at  sunset  saw  their  city  fair. 

**  And  he  who  would  make  sure  ran  fast 

To  reach  the  golden  sunset  gate. 
Where  captains  and  proud  chariots  passed. 

But  lo,  he  came  one  moment  late  ! 
The  gate  was  closed,  and  all  night  long  he  cried ; 
He  cried  and  cried,  but  never  watch  replied. 

^  Meanwhile,  the  nun  who  cared  to  save 

Another  as  he  would  be  saved 
Came  slowly  on,  gave  bread  and  gave 

Cool  waters,  and  he  stooped  and  laved 
The  wounds.    At  last,  bent  double  with  his  weight, 
He  passed,  unchid,  the  porter's  private  gate. 


—  95  — 

"  Hear  then  this  lesson,  hear  and  learn  : 
He  who  would  save  his  soul,  I  say. 
Must  lose  his  soul ;  must  dare  to  turn 

And  lift  the  fallen  by  the  way  ; 
Must  make  his  soul  worth  saving  by  some  deed 
That  grows,  and   rows,  as  grows  the  fruitful  seed." 

As  said  before,  the  silent  man  with  set 
lips  cast  aside  the  coat  on  his  arm  as  he 
reached  the  rocky  summit  where  he  had 
planted  the  olive-tree.  It  had  flourished 
wonderfully.  As  he  hastily  threw  the  coat 
beneath  its  beautiful  green  and  gray  and 
dove-colored  branches  and  hurried  on  down 
over  the  high,  steep  brow  of  the  hill  he  did 
not  see  the  symbol  of  peace  at  all.  His  eyes 
were  blinded  with  rage.  He  led  on  and  on 
down  the  steep  and  wooded  road  to  the  very 
bed  of  the  canyon. 

The  robust  German  followed  close  at  his 
heels.  His  mind  was  full  of  speculation  and 
expectation.  He  had  become  convinced  that 
his  neighbor,  the  dreamer,  was  entirely  help- 
less ;  that  his  lands  were  surely  slipping  from 
his  tired  hands ;  that  they  must  fall  into  the 
hands  of  some  one,  and  why  not  as  well  into 
his  hands  as  those  of  another  ? 

"  Yes,  down  here  in  the  deep  canyon  he 
will  make  some  concessions  for  the  sake  of 
peace,  as  he  always  does,  and  as  there  will 


-96- 

be  no  witness  I  can  fix  it  up  to  suit  myself. 
And  he,  of  course,  will  consent  to  whatever 
I  say,  for  the  sake  of  peace.  Let  me  see,  I 
must  have  a  little  money  to  bind  the  bar- 
gain ;  a  little  spot  cash,  if  only  one  dollar, 
to  bind  the  bargain,  my  lawyer  say,  and  —  " 

The  big  man's  calculations  were  suddenly 
interrupted.  They  had  reached  the  dense 
redwood  grove  at  the  bottom  of  the  canyon, 
and  Morton  had  wheeled  sharply  about.  His 
back  was  to  the  largest  of  the  lovely  little 
redwood-trees ;  and  his  face  only  a  few  feet 
from  that  of  his  robust  neighbor. 

The  peaceful  brook  purled  and  rattled 
along  in  its  bed  of  rocks  and  pebbles,  birds 
sang  pleasantly  from  the  further  hillside  in 
the  sun,  but  all  else  was  silent.  The  place 
was  as  secure  from  intrusion  as  a  country 
churchyard. 

The  man  drew  in  his  breath  sharp  and 
quick  and  said  hastily,  between  his  teeth  : 

"  You  are  well  to-day  ?  '* 

•'  Yes,  yes,  never  so  veil ;  but  I  am  varm. 
I  puts  on  my  coat,  so  I  vill  not  take 
cold." 

"  No !  you  will  not  take  cold.  You  will 
not  have  time  to  take  cold  !  " 

"  Why,  what  do  you  mean  ?  " 

"What  do  I  mean.^  I   told  you  I   would 


—  97  — 

pay  you,  settle  with  you,  here  in  the  canyon, 
and  I  intend  to  keep  my  word." 

The  German  was  not  dull ;  neither  was  he 
a  coward.  He  saw  that  there  was  battle  in 
the  eye  of  his  outraged  neighbor,  and  in  a 
second  he  threw  his  coat  aside  and  prepared 
to  meet  it  like  a  man. 

With  right  foot  forward  and  his  big,  red 
fists  in  rest,  he  awaited  the  onset.  But  his 
neighbor  was  not  now  in  such  great  haste. 
There  was  a  pause,  and  the  German,  who 
really  knew  himself  all  along  to  have  been 
terribly  in  the  wrong,  took  quick  occasion  to 
say,  "  Is  this  your  Sermon  on  the  Mount?  " 
"  Yes,  yes,  it  is.  For  I  have  read  it  over 
and  over  since  I  read  it  to  you,  and  I  find  it 
is  written  there  that  you  shall  not  give  that 
which  is  holy  unto  dogs^  nor  cast  pearls 
before  swineP 

It  was  too  much,  that  peculiarly  personal 
accent  given  the  allusion  to  the  low  creatures 
named ;  and  the  German,  suddenly  blinded 
with  rage,  struck  out  terribly  with  his  big, 
red,  right  fist. 

He  was  a  huge  man,  nearly  twice  the 
weight  of  his  neighbor  and  not  so  old.  But 
he  had  not  spent  the  past  five  years  in  wrest- 
ling with  the  elements  on  a  mountain  side. 
His  had  been  a  sedentary  life  in  the  city; 
7 


-98- 

and  so  his  first  blow,  which  spent  its  force 
above  the  mark,  as  he  stood  on  ground 
higher  than  that  of  his  sinewy  opponent,  was 
his  last.  But  he  forced  the  fighting  like  a 
good  German  soldier  as  he  was,  and  bore 
down  heavily  on  the  man,  who  stood  with 
his  back  to  the  tree,  and  at  last,  by  sheer 
weight  and  force,  he  bore  him  to  the  ground. 

but,  as  in  the  story  of  old,  the  earth  came 
to  the  rescue.  The  dear  old  mother  earth, 
whom  he  had  loved  and  on  whose  bosom  he 
had  rested,  or  wrought  in  forms  of  beauty 
for  years  past,  came  to  his  help  as  she  came 
to  the  help  of  the  shepherd  king  of  old.  He 
sprang  to  his  feet  with  renewed  life.  The 
German  again  stood  before  him,  formidable 
indeed  to  look  upon,  but  almost  breathless. 

Bang  !  bang  I  bang !  The  first  landed  with 
terrific  force  on  the  big  man's  big  throat. 
His  head  was  thrown  back  by  the  blow,  and 
before  he  could  recover  the  first  was  followed 
by  the  second,  and  the  second  by  the  third 
on  the  same  unguarded  column. 

The  big,  red  fists  fell  to  the  big  man's 
side.  The  big  mouth  opened  and  the  big 
man  gasped  helplessly,  but  could  not  even 
find  breath  to  cry  out  for  mercy.  The  battle 
was  over. 

"  Come  now  and  be  washed ;  then  go  and 


—  99  — 

tell  your  Dutch  and  Irish  friends  that  it  was 
poison-oak.  What !  Do  you  want  more  ? 
Come !  and  be  decent  about  it,  or  I  '11  thresh 
you  till  you  do." 

The  big  man  had  held  back  as  disdaining 
to  accept  help  from  his  enemy ;  but  the  other 
man  would  not  be  trifled  with  now,  —  the 
rage  of  battle  was  on  him ;  and  so,  accepting 
the  outreaching  hand  of  help,  he  suffered 
himself  to  be  led  down  to  the  pretty  little 
brook,  over  which  he  bowed  his  big  head, 
gasping  and  gasping  for  breath,  and  was 
washed  as  if  he  had  been  a  new-born  babe. 

Pretty  soon  he  stood  erect,  then  he  stooped 
over,  washed  his  face  with  his  own  hands 
and  then  rose  up  and  slowly  wiped  his  face 
and  his  hands  with  his  handkerchief. 

At  last,  lifting  his  head,  he  looked  his 
neighbor  full  in  the  face  as  he  reached  his 
right  hand.  The  other  took  it  and  shook  it 
heartily. 

"  Dot 's  all  right ;  you  cuts  down  vot  you 
likes." 

With  this  the  German  gathered  up  his 
coat  and  took  his  way  down  the  canyon 
toward  his  home. 

The  city-builder  looked  after  him,  his 
heart  bursting  with  shame  and  humiliation. 
He  wanted  to  run  after  him,  to  bring  him 


—  100  — 

back,  to  beg  his  pardon,  to  beg  his  pardon 
on  his  knees.  But  the  chill  and  damp  of 
twilight  soon  began  to  creep  into  his  bones, 
and  he  slowly  ascended  to  the  olive-tree  on 
the  high  hilltop  where  he  had  thrown  aside 
his  coat.  He  gathered  the  garment  about 
his  chilled  shoulders,  and  too  weary  to  go 
further,  he  lay  with  his  face  to  the  dust.  He 
had  never  been  so  entirely  miserable  in  all 
his  miserable  life. 

How  continually  he  had  taught  all  men 
the  wisdom,  the  duty,  the  beauty  of  turning 
the  other  cheek  !  and  yet,  here  he  had  gone 
down  to  the  low  and  bestial  level  of  a  poor 
ignorant  foreigner  and  fought  and  fought  as 
a  dog  might  fight. 

True,  he  had  been  tempted,  terribly 
tempted ;  but  he  had  fallen  so  low,  so  fool- 
ishly, that  he  could  now  no  longer  hold  up 
his  head  or  have  the  heart  to  go  fonvard 
with  his  lessons  of  love  and  beauty  and 
duty  at  all. 

He  lay  there  on  his  face,  and  he  felt  that 
surely  the  end  of  all  his  hopes  and  aspira- 
tions had  come. 

In  his  despair  his  thoughts  kept  continu- 
ally turning  to  her,  Miriam.  Where  was 
she  ?  What  had  he  done  that  she  had  not 
kept  her  promise .''    Five  years  had  swept  by. 


lOl 


He  had  missed  her  presence,  her  calm  coun- 
sel, serene  wisdom,  so  much  all  the  time ; 
and  as  hope  began  to  falter,  and  all  things 
to  fall  away  from  him,  he  had  come  to  think 
of  her  continually  and  to  wish  for  her  or 
death.  "  I  will  come  to  you  —  sometime." 
And  now  that  he  needed  her  so  entirely  his 
soul  went  out  to  her  entirely,  —  a  poor,  lone 
dove  on  the  deluge  of  waters,  that  found  no 
place  for  the  sole  of  its  foot. 

He  lay  there  on  the  heights  in  the  gather- 
ing night,  and,  as  his  heart  went  out  to  her,  he 
continually  repeated,  "  I  will  come  to  you  -— 
sometime  ;  "  and  then  he  murmured,  "  Lead 
us  not  into  temptation!  Lead  us  not  into 
temptation ! " 


XIV^_  UNDER  THE  OLIVE-TREES. 

Those  shining  leaves  that  limped  and  shook 
All  darkDe:>s  trom  them,  sensate  leaves 

In  Nature's  never -tnding  book  ; 
Leaves  full  of  truth  as  garnered  sheaves 

That  hold  till  seed-time  fruitful  seed, 

To  grow  as  grows  some  small  good  deed. 

How  strangely  and  how  vastly  still ! 

The  harNest  trnton  hunj^  low  and  large, 
And  drew  acro>>>  the  dreamful  hill 

Like  some  h  ,  freighted  barge ; 

Some  strange,  !  world  it  surely  seemed. 

The  while  he  gazed  and  dreamed,  yet  scarcely  dreamed. 


1  HE  poor,  discouraged  dreamer  under 
the  little  olive-tree  on  the  high  peak  above 
the  sea  was  so  very  sore  in  soul,  and  so  very 
sore  in  body  too  !  He  could  have  borne  with 
the  last ;  but  the  two  together  made  him 
earnestly  wish  to  die  and  leave  it  all  with 
the  one  word  **  Failure  "  for  his  epitaph. 

After  a  time  the  ever-welcome  winds, 
warm  and  balmy  as  with  a  heahng  balm, 
blew  m  and  on  and  away  down  toward  the 
Mexican  seas  from  Japan. 

" '  Oh  that  I  had  the  wings  of  the  dove,  to 
fly  away  and  be  at  rest  ! '  "  he  sighed  pite- 
ously,  as  the  warm,  strong  winds  went  on  by, 


—  I03  — 

bearing  their  snow-white  fleets  and  happy 
voyagers.  Surely,  these  clouds  that  drove 
by  below,  about,  above,  were  mighty  ships 
that  bore  sweet  souls  bound  heavenward. 

From  the  city  and  the  mountain-side  be- 
low him  came  up  the  song  and  the  melody 
of  the  closing  day.  Still  further  below, 
many  and  many  a  church  spire  pierced  the 
warm,  white  clouds  that  blew  in  from  the 
sea  and  drew  softly  through  the  tree-tops 
above  the  city.  The  sound  of  church  bells 
came  up  to  him  through  the  world  of  clouds ; 
came  up  to  him  there  under  the  little  olive- 
tree,  as  if  they  had  lost  their  way,  as  he  had 
lost  his  way,  there  on  the  stony  steeps  of  his 
mountain. 

Beyond  all  this  the  bosom  of  the  great 
bay  of  San  Francisco  rose  and  fell  with  the 
sea  of  seas,  and  gleamed  and  glistened  and 
gloried  in  the  face  of  God  as  if  a  living  thing. 

At  the  Golden  Gate,  without,  the  great 
sea,  with  its  hundred  thousand  white-clad 
(Choristers,  sang  and  sang  and  sang. 

A  huge  sea-lion  from  the  seal  rocks  beyond 
the  city  of  San  Francisco  rose  out  of  the 
sea,  climbed  to  the  top  of  the  crags,  and 
there  lifted  his  bearded  face  straight  up  in 
the  air,  and  mouthed  and  mouthed  his  dole- 
ful monotone  till  it  rolled  and  rose  above  the 


—  I04  — 

clang  of  the  church  bells  and  above  the 
songs  of  the  hundred  thousand  white-clad 
singers  of  the  sea  of  seas. 

And  still  the  soft  and  balmy  winds  came 
in  continually  with  their  warmth  and  healing 
from  the  dreamful  seas  of  Japan. 

but  the  man  under  the  olive-tree  was  mis- 
erable, utterly  miserabL^,  for  all  this  melody, 
all  this  harmony  of  sea  and  song,  this  har- 
mony of  heaven  and  earth. 

'•  Oh,  why  may  I  not  build  a  ship  of  clouds 
and  launch  it  on  this  stront^',  sweet  current 
that  flows  in  so  steadily  from  Japan  ?  Surely, 
surely  science  might  make  a  ship  to  sail 
these  mighty  streams  of  the  upper  world  ! 
Why,  men  have  been  sailing  their  helpless 
little  air-ships  in  the  valley,  from  little  town 
towers  for  centuries ;  but  who  has  dared 
these  brave,  big  currents  that  keep  place  in 
heaven  like  mighty  rivers  which  turn  not  to 
the  right  nor  left,  but  keep  straight  on? 
Surely,  when  the  great  navigator  comes  he 
will  launch  his  stately  ships  upon  these 
strong  and  steady  currents.  Man  has  kept 
his  face  to  the  ground  in  quest  of  gold;  but 
some  day,  some  great  and  good  and  really 
wise  Columbus  will  come,  and  will  launch 
his  ships  here  on  these  strong,  swift,  sweet 
currents  of  Japan,  and  sail  to  the  undiscov- 
ered continents  of  heaven." 


—  I05  — 

Such  were  the  weary  and  desolate  man's 
dreamful  and  confused  thoughts  as  he  lay- 
there  wrapped  in  the  large  solemnity  of 
gathering  night.  Meantime,  the  countless 
belts  and  curves  and  crescents  of  electric 
lights  leaped  suddenly  into  existence  and 
climbed  to  the  top  of  mountains  beyond  the 
city  of  San  Francisco.  The  stars  had  stood 
there  but  a  moment  before.  Now,  one  could 
not  tell  where  the  lights  left  off  or  the  stars 
began. 

The  gorgeous  and  flaming  star  of  Mars 
had  hung  just  above  the  grand  and  inde- 
scribably pathetic  figure  of  "  Our  Mother  of 
Pain,"  at  whose  feet  the  pious  and  patient 
men  of  God,  a  full  century  before,  had  built 
their  holy  little  temple,  the  Mission  Dolores. 

The  strangely  brilliant  battle-star  was 
settling  down,  down,  down,  straight  between 
the  lifted  breasts  of  the  Holy  Virgin  where 
they  lift  perpetually,  as  in  the  piteous  agonies 
of  motherhood. 

The  man's  racked  and  wearied  senses 
wandered  now,  and  grew  confused  with  the 
sea  of  lights  in  which  his  star  lay  drowning 
at  the  feet  of  Our  Mother  of  Sorrows.  For 
now  the  face  and  figure  of  the  most  divinely 
glorious  being  ever  seen  seemed  to  be  dimly 
limned   out  before   him ;    and   the    Star  of 


—  io6  — 

Bethlehem  was  in  her  wondrous  night  of 
hair.  It  was  she,  Miriam,  that  wondrous 
woman  of  Jerusalem  and  of  Egypt.  "  I 
will  come  to  you  —  sometime."  She  had 
come. 

And  a  ship  was  there !  Was  it  but  a 
cloud?  Surely  there  was  no  mistaking  the 
fact  of  the  strong  and  steady  stream  from 
Japan. 

It  seemed  to  him  that  no  word  had  been 
said  as  he  arose  from  under  the  olive-tree, 
entered  the  ship,  and  so  sailed  on  and  on  and 
on.  They  sailed  by  the  porch  of  heaven.  It 
was  pavilioned  with  stars,  propped  by  awful 
arches  formed  of  uncompleted  worlds. 

They  sailed  beneath  the  .Milky  Way,  that 
seemed  as  some  great  arch  above  a  surging 
river.  They  sailed  above  the  clouds,  above 
the  sinking  moon,  above  all  storms  and 
counterstorms ;  and  the  mighty  river  which, 
like  the  Gulf  Stream,  girdled  the  world, 
swept  on  and  on  and  on. 

Black  and  white  and  storm-tossed  clouds 
were  banked  below  or  heaped  on  either  side. 
These  seas  and  shores  of  tumbled  clouds 
were  bed  and  banks  of  this  awful  Gulf 
Stream  of  the  upper  world,  on  whose  strong 
and  certain  currents  the  air-ship  sailed  and 
sailed  and  sailed. 


—  I07  — 

It  was  full  morning  when  he  landed ;  and 
he  was  alone.  The  ship  had  rested  on  a 
pine-set  mountain-top.  A  vast  valley  lay 
below.  In  the  centre  of  this  valley,  sand- 
sown  and  tawny  as  a  desert  of  Africa  all 
about  its  borders,  lay  gleaming  like  silver  in 
the  morning  sun  a  city  of  indescribable 
splendor  and  magnitude. 

Almost  overcome  with  awe  and  wonder, 
the  man  descended  from  the  car,  keeping  his 
eyes  fixed  on  the  far-off  city  amid  its  groves 
in  the  heart  of  the  tawny  desert. 

Descending  through  the  pines  a  little  dis- 
tance down  a  well-worn  road,  he  came  to  a 
small  station.  A  man  approached  him,  but 
he  kept  turning  about  to  look  for  the  silent 
and  serenely  beautiful  Madonna,  who  had 
accompanied  him  in  the  glorious  voyage 
above  the  world.  He  saw  her  not,  and 
was  sad. 

Olive-trees,  orange-trees,  birds,  bees,  blos- 
soms —  a  railroad  depot  in  the  midst  of  all 
this,  and  yet  all  things  so  like  one  perpetual 
Sunday.  It  was  as  quiet,  as  restful,  as 
flowery  here  as  the  entrance  of  some  gor- 
geous church  on  some  Easter  Sunday,  —  as 
if  the  people  were  waiting  for  the  minister 
to  come  in.  Yes,  there  was  the  music,  and 
such    music !     No     shrieking,     soul-tearing 


—  io8  — 

sounds  —  sounds  in  combat,  notes  in  battle, 
notes  at  war  with  notes  —  such  as  distract 
the  civiHzed  (?)  earth  from  end  to  end;  no 
sickening  smells  and  other  abominations 
that  hold  high  carnival  at  the  average  depot 
in  the  outer  world. 

Peace,  peace,  peace !  Melody,  poetry, 
Paradise ! 

And  yet,  this  was  surely  all  on  the  solid 
earth ;  for  the  man  who  came  forward  and 
touched  his  cap  to  the  stranger  was  gray 
about  the  temples.  Surely  he,  at  least,  had 
not  yet  done  with  time.  People  were  com- 
ing and  people  were  going,  just  as  elsewhere; 
old  people  and  young  people,  plain  and 
beautiful. 

"  The  train  starts  exactly  on  the  hour. 
You  see  that  you  have  time  to  take  your 
seat  for  the  city." 

A  hand  indicated  a  high  tower  where  a 
great  clock  hung  above  the  few,  brief  rules, 
the  set  times  for  coming  and  going. 

As  the  stranger  took  his  seat  he  could  not 
help  missing  those  ever-present  lies  that  are 
set  up  in  any  depot  on  earth :  *•  Shortest 
route  I"  "Only  safe  line!"  '' Quickest  and 
cheapest  line  to  the  city." 

In  fact,  as  he  looked  out  through  the  car,  — 
for  the  cars  were  made  of  malleable  glass. 


lOQ  

transparent  as  air  and  indestructible  as 
brass  (one  of  the  lost  arts  restored),  —  he 
could  not  but  note  the  entire  absence  of  the 
decorative  advertisement. 

The  shapely  clock-tower,  with  its  girdles 
of  brass  and  its  sides  of  broad  bronze,  was  a 
goodly  place  for  "  posters,"  too. 

But  these  unenterprising  people  had  not 
even  put  up  a  sign  to  say  that  space  on  this 
tower  for  advertising  purposes  was  to  be  had 
cheaper  than  on  any  other  clock-tower  on 
the  road. 

Without  a  word  or  sound  or  sign  from 
any  one  save  from  the  clock  in  the  tower 
and  the  little  clocks  at  the  end  of  each  car 
that  indicated  not  only  the  time  but  the 
name  of  each  station,  they  glided  out  and 
they  glided  on. 

Inquiring  of  a  pleasant-faced  priest  at  his 
side,  he  learned,  to  his  great  relief  —  for  he 
had  neither  scrip  nor  purse  —  that  as  the 
roads  all  belonged  to  the  people,  the  people 
did  not  take  tribute  of  themselves  nor  of  the 
stranger  within  their  gates  who  came  to 
honor  them  with  his  presence. 

"  I  have  surely  been  here  before,"  said 
the  man  at  last,  as  if  to  himself,  while  he  sat 
looking  out  upon  the  beautiful  groves  and 
roads   of  roses   and  bananas   and  wooded 


—  no 

parks  through  which  the  swift  and  silent  cars 
continually  descended. 

"  If  you  will  allow  me,"  began  the  kindly 
monk,  "  that  is  a  matter,  the  idea  of  having 
been  here  before,  which  we  have  under  deep 
consideration." 

*'  Will  you  explain  ?  " 

"Certainly.  Meditative  people  are  almost 
constantly  seeing  something  in  this  life  that 
they  say  they  have  surely  seen  before ;  and 
that  something  is  always  something  beautiful 
or  grand  or  inspiring,  appealing  to  the  best 
that  is  in  us.  And  this,  some  of  us,  at  least, 
take  to  be  one  of  the  tangible  and  visible 
evidences  of  immortality.  This,  some  of  us 
hold  to  be  pretty  clear  evidence  that  we  not 
only  shall  live  hereafter,  but  that  we  have 
lived  long,  long  before.  No,  no,  my  son, 
you  have  never  looked  on  this  scene  in  this 
life,  previous  to  this ;  for  it  is  all  very  new. 
But  it  may  be  that  somewhere  else,  in  some 
other  world,  or  at  least  in  some  other  life, 
you,  in  a  happy  moment  of  harmony  with  all 
things,  saw  something  very  like  this,  under 
restful  and  harmonious  conditions  verj'  like 
to  these,"  said  the  priest,  thoughtfully. 

The  stranger  was  dumb  with  wonder  and 
delight.  He  had  at  last  and  for  the  first 
time  since  leaving  the  lady  of  Jerusalem  by 


Ill 


the  Nile  come  into  an  atmosphere  of  thought 
in  which  his  soul  if  not  his  body  had  been 
born  from  the  first.  He  lifted  his  hat  and 
sat  uncovered  in  silence.  Cottages,  fields  of 
corn,  cane,  cotton,  a  lane  of  banana-trees 
shut  out  the  sun  from  the  gliding  palaces  of 
glass  all  along  now. 

"  And  all  this,  you  tell  me,  was  only  an 
arid  sea  of  gleaming  sand  and  baked  mud  a 
few  years  ago  ?  " 

"  Certainly ;  we  at  first  found  rain  hard  to 
produce ;  but  we  had  been  prudent  enough 
to  bring  with  us  something  better  than  the 
natural  storms  of  rain,  —  intelligence,  and  a 
colony  of  scientific  men  and  women.  We 
now  have  rain  whenever  it  is  needed,  but 
never  when  it  is  not  needed." 

"  Indeed  !  And  such  cars  !  " 

"Yes,"  said  the  priest,  "we  make  glass 
houses,  railway  ties,  railway  tracks,  and 
railway  cars,  as  you  see  here." 

"  And  they  never  break  ?  " 

"  Glass  is  not  only  elastic,  as  all  knov/,  but 
glass,  by  our  redemption  of  a  lost  art,  is 
made  as  malleable  as  gold  or  copper." 

It  is  hardly  known  what  more  the  priest 
said  or  might  have  said,  as  they  glided  on 
down  under  the  great  banana-trees ;  for  just 
then   the   stranger   caught   a  glimpse   of   a 


112 


party  gathering  bananas.  They  were  girls, 
up  in  the  trees  among  the  birds,  buried  in 
the  broad  leaves,  an  arm  thrusting  up  after 
the  yellow  fruit,  a  brown  limb  thrusting  out 
below,  drawn  bark,  bound  around  and  twined 
about  a  branch  to  hold  fast !  Ah  !  he  forgot 
that  a  priest  was  within  a  thousand  miles 
of  him. 

Many  stations,  many  short  stops,  then  on 
and  on  through  the  continuous  and  seemingly 
endless  lane  of  laden  trees. 

At  one  of  the  little,  leafy  stations  the 
priest  put  forth  his  hand  and  received  from 
a  pretty  Indian  girl  two  yellow  bananas. 
They  were  like  yellow  ears  of  corn,  so  large 
were  they.     And  such  flavor  ! 

"  The  world,  the  outside  commercial 
world,"  said  the  priest  as  he  handed  one  to 
the  stranger,  "  has  never  yet  tasted  a  banana. 
Those  wild  things,  gathered  green  by  sav- 
ages of  the  Cannibal  Islands  and  thrown 
into  the  holds  of  sailing  vessels  to  rot  and 
ripen,  ripen  and  rot,  are  not  bananas.  They 
are  disease.  They  are  death,  death  for 
little  children,  old  people,  young  people,  all 
people." 

At  last  they  glided  over  a  glass  bridge 
that  spanned  a  bent  lagoon.  The  central 
railway  station,  where  they  now  stopped  and 


—  113  — 

from  which  all  tracks,  trains,  pneumatic 
tubes,  airship-lines,  and  even  streets  and  high- 
ways ran,  was  simply  a  palace,  a  glorious 
palace  of  glass,  blue  above  as  the  sky  is 
blue ;  and  under  foot  the  solid  earth,  snow- 
white  sand,  with  fountains  bursting  up 
through,  blossoming  trees,  and  birds  in  every 
tree,  and  a  song  in  the  throat  of  every  bird ; 
for  all  things  were  so  beautiful  and  all  things 
were  so  happy  the  birds  could  but  sing. 


XV.  —  AS    WHEN    THE    CHRIST 
SHALL  COME  AGAIN. 

From  out  the  gulden  doors  of  dawn 

The  wise  men  came,  of  wundroui  thought, 

Who  knew  th*-  ».t^r^.      From  far  upon 
The  -  brought 

Their  l  ^  .      _.       ■>  an<i  gol'ii 

While  cioudiike  mcense  from  their  presence  rolled. 

T!  -.  of  rtower  helds,  their  sweet 

.    1 '  :s  oi  moit  sacred  leaves 

They  laid,  low-bending,  at  His  feet. 

As  reapers  bend  above  their  sheaves  — 
As  strong-armed  reapers  bending  clamorous 
To  gather  golden  full  sheaves  kneeling  thus. 

And  kneeling  so,  they  spake  of  when 
God  walked  His  garden's  sacred  S(jd, 

Nor  yet  had  hid  His  face  from  men, 
Nor  yet  had  man  forgotten  (Jod. 

They  spake.     But  Mary  kept  her  thought  apart 

And,  sUent,  •'  pondered  all  things  in  her  heart." 

They  spake  in  whispers  long,  they  laid 

Their  shaggy  heads  together,  drew 
Some  stamed  scrolls  breathless  forth,  then  made 

Such  speech  as  only  wise  men  knew,  — 
T?        '  -imels  on  the  huge  hill  set 

O- iome  night-hewn  silhouette. 


Ti 


HE  stranger  was  hungrj', — more  than 
hungry,  he  was  famishing.  The  good  priest 
knew  this,  —  knew  it  not  from  words,  maybe 


~ii5  — 

not  from  look,  act,  or  utterance.  But  so 
sensitive  and  refined  had  these  people  grown 
here,  even  in  a  few  years  of  meditation  and 
unselfishness,  that  they  really  knew  the 
thoughts  and  feelings  of  one  another,  —  as 
horses,  dogs  and  other  lower  animals  know 
our  desires  and  designs.  More  of  this,  how- 
ever, later  on. 

Over  and  across  a  wide,  snow-white,  sand- 
sown  avenue  of  banana-trees,  where  no 
cart,  car,  carriage,  or  any  other  rumbling 
nuisance  could  pass,  the  good  priest  led  to 
a  public  restaurant  by  a  great  fountain. 

"  Not  being  a  strong  man,"  he  began  as 
they  sat   down,  "  I    chose   the   duties   of   a 
waiter  when  I   came,   and   I  serve   my  two 
hours  of  daily  toil  here.     However,  my  toil, 
I  regret  to  say,  must  come  to  an  end  next 
year,  as   I  shall  then  be  sixty.     This  man 
who  will  wait  on  us  now  is  a  young  Method- 
ist clergyman,  or  rather  he  was  a  Methodist 
clergyman.     But  as  all  roads  run  in  together 
as  we  approach   any  one  city  or  centre   of 
any  sort,  so  here,  as  we   attain  peace   and 
approach    something    nearer   the    common 
centre  of  more  perfect  life,  we  find  all  relig- 
ions running  in  together.     We  are  all  walk- 
ing along  so  nearly  together  here,  in  fact,  that 
we  can  and  do  touch  hands  across  the  nar- 
row and  dim  little  lines  that  divide  us." 


—  ii6  — 

*'  Well,  well,  well !  and  you  say  you,  a 
not  very  strong  man,  will  lay  aside  the 
menial  employment  of  a  common  servant, 
or  waiter,  at  the  age  of  sixty,  with  regret  ?  " 

"  Certainly.  I  really  and  truly  like  to 
serve.  If  Christ  could  wash  his  disciples' 
feet,  might  I  not  give  bread  to  a  hungry 
man  ;  or  even  wash  a  hungry  man's  plate?  " 
The  stranger  held  his  peace  a  moment, 
and  then,  as  the  choice  repast  was  served, 
ate  in  silent  amazement  as  the  priest 
continued :  — 

"  But  of  course  I  cannot  be  idle.  After 
reaching  sixty  years  I  must  begin  to  hold 
office ;  so  I  shall  be  required  to  serve  the 
Republic  many  years  still,  if  I  live.  In  fact, 
no  man  or  woman  who  lives  long  enough  can 
hardly  escape  serving  a  term  as  president." 

''  May  I  be  permitted  to  know  the  mys- 
tery of  it  all.'" 

•'  There  is  no  mystery  at  all.  Mystery 
there  may  be  in  other  republics,  where  pres- 
idents, and  often  thousands  of  other  officers 
are  chosen  by  man's  popular  voice,  but  not 
so  here.  God,  Nature,  elects  our  every 
officer.  You  see,  any  one  coming  here  from 
the  outer  world,  and  all  who  are  bom  here 
are  registered,  —  age,  occupation,  and  so  on. 
Well,  every  one  attaining  the  age  of  seventy 


—  117  — 

becomes  a  senator,  and  the  oldest  persons 
in  the  Senate  comprise  the  Council.  The 
oldest  of  these  is  president,  and  is  usually 
a  person  of  eighty ;  for  we  live  in  the  full  en- 
joyment of  all  our  faculties  at  least  ten  years 
longer  than  in  the  outside  world,  where  the 
brain  and  body  are  strained  and  strung  till 
they  break  from  the  very  tension." 

"  And  then  you  have  no  elections  at  all  ?  " 

"  Yes,  the  election  of  nature ;  the  choice 
of  God." 

The  stranger  shook  his  head  at  this  in- 
tensely democratic  proposition. 

"  I  see  you  do  not  entirely  approve  of 
leaving  the  election  to  God.  You  fear  that 
some  bad  or  foolish  man  may  by  this  means 
attain  the  head  of  government.  Listen  to 
me.  Does  not  the  Declaration  of  Inde- 
pendence of  a  certain  great  nation  assert 
that  '  all  men  are  born  free  and  equal '  ? 
Now,  if  we  are  born  equal  how  is  it  that  we 
become  so  unequal  as  we  go  forward  in  the 
great  outer  world  ?  Why,  you  see  some  are 
hit,  hit  hard  in  the  hot  and  bitter  battle  of 
life.  Wrong,  insult,  oppression,  hard  work, 
hunger,  —  ay,  hunger,  hunger  of  body  and 
soul,  —  these  things  dwarf,  break  down  the 
very  best  and  finest  of  you.  And  so  it  is 
that  you  in  the  outer  world,  with  your  law- 


—  iiS  — 

yers,  jour  politicians,  your  idle  parsons  and 
your  idle  priests,  your  lying  money-lenders 
and  land-agents,  your  oppressive  middle 
men,  eleven  idle  and  scheming  men  to  the 
one  slave  at  work,  one  man  working  ten, 
fifteen,  twenty  hours,  if  he  can  stand  up 
under  it —  Ah  me!  no  wonder  that  man 
succeeds,  with  all  this  evil  and  ill-doing,  in 
making  unecjual  that  which  (jod  has  made 
equal." 

They  had  risen  and  passed  out  into  the 
street.  The  stranger  was  full  of  wonder, 
and  entirely  silent  with  awe  and  admiration. 
And  yet  he  could  not  help  recalling  the  fact 
that  he  had  somewhere,  far  back  in  life, 
heard  much  of  this  which  was  being  uttered 
here.  His  mind  went  back  to  a  voyage  up 
the  Nile,  to  a  night  amid  the  ruins  of  fear- 
ful Karnak,  to  the  glory  and  the  serene 
beauty  of  a  dark  and  splendid  face  there. 
His  soul  went  out  continually  to  the  grand 
and  silent  woman  who  had  come  to  him  in 
the  clouds  only  the  night  before  and  had 
carried  him  away  and  out  of  his  world  of 
cares,  out  of  himself,  to  this,  her  world. 

'*  You  are  thinking  of  her  ?  " 

"  Of  whom  ?  " 

"Well,  no  matter  about  her  name.  Let 
us  say  our  guardiaa  angel.     I  am  desirous 


—  119  — 

of  leading  you  to  her.  Shall  we  proceed 
directly  to  her,  or  wait  till  to-morrow  ?  To- 
morrow were  better." 

"At  once,  please  God,  at  once!"  cried 
the  man,  with  clasped  hands,  as  he  saw  the 
kindly  man  hesitate. 

"  You  need  rest." 

"  Indeed,  indeed,  I  do  not  need  rest.  I 
am  strong  as  a  lion.  I  need  only  her  —  to 
see  her." 

A  shade  of  concern  and  deep  sadness 
swept  over  the  sensitive  priest's  face,  as  if 
he  had  something  in  his  mind  which  he 
hesitated  to  tell.     At  last  he  said  :  — 

"  Yes,  yes,  you  are  strong." 

"  And  she  —  she,  my  Madonna,  Miriam  — 
she  is  not  strong  ?  " 

"  Far,  far  from  strong,  my  son." 

The  priest's  head  was  on  his  breast  as 
he  spoke.  Then  lifting  his  face  he  said 
pleasantly :  — 

"  But  she  forbids  all  sadness  on  this  score, 
and  so  I  must  obey  her  and  be  cheerful." 

*'  But  I  may  see  her  to-night  ?  " 

"  To-morrow,  my  son,  to-morrow." 


XVI. 

The  sun  lay  molten  in  the  sea 

Of  ^and,  and  all  the  sea  was  rolled 

In  one  broad,  bright  intensity 

Of  gold  and  ijold  and  gold  and  gold. 

/Vs  the  rosy  fingers  of  morning  reached 
out  of  heaven,  laid  aside  night's  sombre 
mantle  from  the  mountain-tops  and  lightly 
touched  the  tawny  bosom  of  the  desert,  a 
vision  of  indescribable  splendor  rose  up  from 
the  far-off  levels  of  boundless  yellow  sands 
to  the  east. 

Golden  sunlight  and  glittering  yellow 
sands  were  warp  and  woof,  and  all  woven 
into  one.  You  could  not  say  which  was 
sunlight  and  which  was  sea,  which  was 
gold  or  golden  sun. 

But  the  miracle  of  it  all  was  the  forest  of 
spires,  minarets,  towers,  pyramids,  obelisks 
and  the  like  that  rose,  a  mirage,  above  the 
levels  of  the  desert.  The  cross,  the  cres- 
cent, the  fire-worshipper's  glowing  signs  of 
the  rising  sun,  all  were  here  in  amazing  mag- 
nitude;  and  all  in  gorgeous  glory  and  har- 
mony of  form  and  color. 

Far  away  they  seemed,  like  the  dim  and 
distant  outlines  of  some  glorious  New  Jeru- 


121 


salem,  or  an  inspired  dream  of  a  prophet  of 
God. 

"Beautiful!  Beautiful!  Beautiful!  Oh, 
that  is  indeed  my  dream  of  the  City  Beauti- 
ful !  Would  to  God  it  could  be  real !  '*  sighed 
the  man  as  he  turned  away  his  eyes  a  mo- 
ment to  rest  them  from  the  splendid  sight. 

"  It  is  all  real,"  said  the  priest,  gently.  He 
had  come  in  with  the  sun  to  see  what  he 
might  do  to  serve  the  stranger;  for  here 
there  was  no  occasion  for  locks  or  closed 
doors,  for  clerks  or  call-boys. 

"All  real?  That,  that  all  real?  Then 
you  found  the  City  of  the  Sun  on  coming  to 
this  wilderness.  You  surely  found  one  of 
the  fabled  cities  of  gold  that  the  daring 
Spaniard  searched  for  so  persistently,"  said 
the  man,  as  he  turned  again  and  looked 
upon  the  glorious  spectacle. 

"  No,  we  built  it  all.  We  still  are  build- 
ing ;  for  our  work  is  only  begun." 

The  man  threw  out  his  hand  and  caught 
the  priest  desperately  by  the  arm. 

"  Let  me  go  back  to  the  hard  realities  of 
my  rocks,  for  I  shall  go  mad  if  I  see  more 
of  these  splendid  visions,  and  then  after  all 
have  to  waken  and  see  them  fade  to 
nothing." 

The  priest  sat  down  beside  him,  holding 


122 


him  tenderly  by  the  hand  which  had  been 
thrown  out  so  wildly  toward  him. 

''  I  assert  it  is  all  real,"  he  said.  "  You 
see,  at  first,  when  we  came  and  settled  here 
where  the  old  Toltec  ruins  lay,  we  had  not 
progressed  in  science  so  far  as  we  now  have. 
Then  our  learned  men  had  not  emancipated 
themselves,  and  so  were  busy  breaking  the 
shackles ;  and  then  it  took  time  to  experi- 
ment  and  give  full  play  and  practice  to  their 
designs.  Hut  now  they  can  build  a  city  in 
the  desert  almost  in  a  day." 

The  stranger  looked  at  the  priest  a  mo- 
ment hard  and  steadily.  A  gentle  and  reas- 
suring pressure  of  the  hand  was  his  only 
answer.     Finally  the  priest  said :  — 

'*  If  you  will  look  toward  the  right  of  the 
loftiest  obelisk  you  will  see  a  most  stately 
pyramid.  That  is  the  first  thing  built  by 
their  new  process,  as  a  sort  of  experiment." 

The  man  looked,  and  beheld  what  seemed 
to  him  a  pyramid  more  noble  than  that  of 
Cheops.     The  priest  went  on. 

'•  Of  course  there  was  nothing  new  in  this 
building  a  pyramid  out  of  desert  sands. 
This  was  rather  an  acknowledgment  to  the 
Eg>'ptians.  They  claim  only  to  have  re- 
stored a  lost  art." 

"  How,  what  ?  " 


12- 


The  man  had  hastily  pressed  the  fingers 
of  his  left  hand  hard  against  his  burning 
forehead ;  for  a  strange  and  sudden  thought 
had  pierced  his  brain.    The  priest  continued : 

"  There  must  have  been  great  inundations 
of  sand  from  Sahara  in  the  olden  time.  And 
this  sand  had  to  be  disposed  of.  They 
could  not  continually  pour  it  into  the  Nile, 
and  so  they  cemented  it  and  built  the  pyra- 
mids out  of  it,  —  yes,  carried  it  up  on  their 
backs,  perhaps,  and  there  fused  and  ce- 
mented and  melted  it  into  shapely  blocks  as 
they  desired  by  the  use  of  chemicals.  And 
so  they  got  rid  of  the  sand  and  had  the 
shapely  pyramids  to  look  upon  and  perpetu- 
ate the  story  of  the  lost  arts  of  immortal  and 
glorious  old  Egypt." 

By  this  time  the  man  had  laid  his  left 
hand  on  the  hand  of  the  priest  which  held 
his  own.  But  he  was  too  eager  to  listen, 
and  to  learn,  to  do  more  than  this,  or  to  even 
move  his  lips. 

*'  But,"  continued  the  priest  with  enthusi- 
asm, "  our  scientists  have  done  more  than 
restore  this  lost  art  in  the  building  of  cities. 
There  are  no  beasts  of  burthen  here  as  in 
Egypt.  In  freedom,  where  men  can  really 
follow  their  natural  and  wholesome  desires, 
labor  is  free  to  choose  its  vocation  and  its 


—  124  — 

hours.  Necessity  does  not  force  a  man  to 
do  the  most  menial  work.  The  hardest  toiler 
gets  the  best  pay  with  us,  and  the  pleasantest 
tasks  the  lightest  pay.  This  naturally  leads 
to  the  employment  of  science  to  make  labor's 
tasks  light  and  pleasant,  rather  than  merely 
profitable  to  the  employer.  I  spoke  of  the 
fusing  of  sand  with  chemicals.  Well,  now, 
an  elevator  is  not  a  pretty  thing,  nor  a  poeti- 
cal thing,  nor  is  it  quite  what  I  mean ;  but 
if  you  keep  in  your  mind  the  idea  of  an  ele- 
vator, such  as  is  used  in  the  loading  of 
wheat,  you  will  have  an  idea  of  the  way  in 
which  we  gather  up  sand  from  the  desert 
and  carry  it  to  the  top  of  our  tallest  edifices, 
and  then  melt  it  into  column  and  spire  and 
dome,  as  readily  and  easily  as  you  can  write 
your  name  in  the  sand  with  a  walking-stick." 

The  man  turned  his  face  once  more  to 
look  at  tower  and  tomb,  minaret,  cross,  cres- 
cent, and  all  the  numberless  works  before 
him  under  the  glowing  sun,  in  the  buildings 
of  the  City  Beautiful.  With  grateful  heart 
he  cried ;  — 

" '  And  the  desert  shall  blossom  as  the 
rose. 

'•  The  desert,"  said  the  priest,  "  is  the 
place  for  the  rose.  The  only  real  place  for 
the  rose  is  in  the  fervid  sands  of  the  desert. 


—  125  — 

Warm  sands  above,  artesian  water  below, 
and  you  have  such  roses  as  the  world  has 
not  seen  since  the  Garden  of  Eden.  As  for 
cities,  we  simply  could  not  build,  never  could 
have  built,  as  we  have  built,  but  for  this 
beautiful  sea  of  desert  sand." 

"  I  observe  that  you  have  the  symbols  of 
all  religions,"  said  the  man,  meditatively, 
after  looking  once  more  far  out  and  under 
the  newly  risen  sun. 

"  No,  we  have  but  one  religion." 
"  Then  why  do   I   see   all  these  various 
symbols  ?  " 

'*  These  are  but  harmonies  and  traditions, 
histories  in  the  air." 

"  Then  what  is  this  one  religion,  pray  ?  " 
The  priest  was  silent  for  a  long  time,  still 
holding  to   both   the  hands  that  had  been 
thrust  with  eager  inquiry  into  his.     At  last 
he  said :  — 

"  I  should  like  to  coin  a  new  word.  I 
should  like  to  find  some  fusing  and  melting 
chemical,  such  as  they  use  out  yonder  in 
melting  <»and  fusing  together  the  sands  in 
building  temples  and  shrines  in  all  religions. 
But  I  am  not  cunning  in  speech.  Let  me 
say,  then,  that  our  one  religion  is  to  love 
truth,  to  love  country,  to  do  good." 
"  And  what,  then,  do  you  worship  ?  " 


—  126  — 

Again  the  good  priest  was  a  long  time 
silent.  He  looked  down  to  the  floor  and 
then  up  and  out  and  far  away.  At  last  he 
said  slowly,  humbly,  and  hardly  above  his 
breath  :  — 

"  We  worship  Truth,  Duty,  Beauty.  Blend 
these  three,  this  trinity  and  all  religions  to- 
gether, as  they  blend  yonder  sands,  and  then 
call  it  God.     \Vc  worship  that  —  Gou." 


XVII.  — IN   HER   PRESENCE   AT 
LAST. 

He  walked  the  world  with  bended  head. 
"There is  no  thing,"  he  moaning  said, 
"  That  must  not  some  day  join  the  dead." 

He  sat  where  rolled  a  river  deep  ; 
A  woman  sat  her  down  to  weep  ; 
A  child  lay  in  her  lap  asleep. 

The  water  touched  the  mother's  hand. 

His  heart  was  touched.     He  passed  from  land, 

But  left  it  laughing  in  the  sand. 

That  one  kind  word,  that  one  good  deed, 
Was  as  if  you  should  plant  a  seed 
In  sand  along  death's  sable  brede. 

And  looking  from  the  farther  shore 

He  saw,  where  he  had  sat  before, 

A  light  that  grew,  grew  more  and  more. 

He  saw  a  growing,  glowing  throng 
Of  happy  people  white  and  strong 
With  faith,  and  jubilant  with  song. 

It  grew  and  grew,  this  little  seed 
Of  good  sown  in  that  day  of  need, 
Until  it  touched  the  stars  indeed ! 

And  then  the  old  man  smiling  said, 
With  youthful  heart  and  lifted  head, 
^'  No  good  deed  ever  joins  the  dead." 

1  HE  world  is  too  much  with  us."     We 
must  turn  back  to  some  of  the  old  beliefs. 


—  128  — 

We  can't  get  to  heaven  on  a  railroad  car,  no 
matter  how  fast  it  runs  O  my  preachers, 
this  railroad  levelling  of  all  things  is  terrible, 
monstrous ;  for  it  is  making  monsters  of 
men,  levelling  them  down  so  that  their  roads 
can  cross  over  all  religion  into  heaven  Vou 
have  explained  away  the  parable  of  the  rich 
man  down  in  hell. 

My  friend,  who  was  this  Jesus  Christ? 
There  was  but  one  Christ,  a  poor  carpenter, 
who  said,  "  Sell  all  that  thou  hast  and  dis- 
tribute unto  the  poor,  and  come,  follow 
me.**  But  you  are  preaching  another  Christ 
entirely. 

Several  times  Spain  arose  and  turned  out 
the  priests  who  had  got  hold  of  the  gold.  I 
implore  you,  teach  the  true  Christ.  Tell 
your  splendid  paymasters  that  the  people 
can  rise  up  as  easily  as  of  old  and  turn  the 
rich  people  out,  as  the  rich  priests  were 
turned  out.  They  can  even  go  out,  out  in 
the  wilderness  as  the  Jews  went  out,  and 
build  new  worlds,  if  their  taskmasters  con- 
tinue to  oppress  them. 

As  the  priest  and  the  stranger  approached 
her  wide-open  door  under  the  banana-trees, 
she  came  forward  to  meet  them. 

The  same  ardent  sincerity,  the  same  elo- 


—  129  — 

quence  of  silence  on  her  pale  and  passionless 
lips !  Ah,  how  pale  she  was !  Her  once 
black  hair  had  whitened  with  her  beautiful 
face.  The  care,  toil,  endurance  of  other 
days  had  taxed  her  terribly.  She  was  now 
paying  that  tax  with  her  precious  life.  And 
yet,  she  was  so  beautiful  still !  But  it  was 
the  beauty  of  the  grand  old  battlements  of 
Rome  in  the  moonlight,  the  majestic  and 
mighty  ruin  of  Karnak  on  the  Nile  at  night. 

Her  great  pathetic  eyes  looked  at  the 
stranger  as  if  looking  out  from  another 
world  for  a  moment,  and  then  she  threw  her 
two  hands  out  as  if  throwing  them  across 
the  years  that  had  rolled  between  them. 
The  years  were  spanned,  swept  aside,  and 
the  two  were  as  of  old. 

The  priest  went  on  his  way  without  words. 
There  are  times,  and  they  are  very  frequent, 
when  words  are  an  impertinence. 

People  here,  as  in  other  parts  of  the  semi- 
tropics,  did  not  live  in  houses  much.  With- 
out a  word  she  slowly  led  out  and  along  by 
the  fountains  and  trees  where  the  birds 
sang. 

There  were  no  servants,  indeed  no  noise 

or  friction  of  any  sort  anywhere.     It  seemed 

as  though  he  had  at  last  found  a  land  on 

earth  that  had  some  sense  of  heaven.     Here 

9 


—  ISO- 
it  seemed  as  if  it  were  one  eternal  Sabbath. 
And  right  and  left,  up  and  down  the  long 
wooded  and  watered  streets,  people  were 
coming  and  people  were  going ;  pausing  now 
to  speak  to  one  another  in  a  soft  and  restful 
fashion,  lingering  to  listen,  turning  about  to 
catch  a  last  look  or  word,  but  that  was  all ; 
there  was  no  haste,  and  the  chattering  was 
all  left  to  the  birds. 

Passing  on  and  up  and  around  through 
lanes  of  perfumed  woods,  by  sparkling  foun- 
tains and  pleasant  porches,  they  came  to  the 
summit,  or,  rather,  the  centre,  where  the 
great  trout  pools  bubbled  and  boiled  up 
through  the  massive  blocks  and  broken  ruins 
of  some  pre-historic  Toltec  city.  She  paused 
here  to  rest  a  moment,  and  turned  to  look 
below.  She  put  out  her  hand.  He  compre- 
hended her  thought. 

She  had  indeed  built  a  city,  her  City 
Beautiful  in  the  desert.  This,  where  they 
stood,  was  the  hub  of  a  wheel ;  in  every 
direction  ran  the  spokes;  at  the  tips  of  the 
spokes  and  far  out  and  around  at  the  foot 
of  the  mountains  ran  a  track  of  glass,  around 
which  cars  of  glass  kept  gliding,  as  spiders 
glide  along,  around  and  over  their  own  little 
world  of  curious  and  intricate  web,  in  silence 
and  harmonious  perfection. 


—  131  — 

"  But  the  title-deeds  to  it  all  ?    The  world 
will  come  this  way  some  day,  and  then  —  " 
"  Ah,  that  I  have  provided  for.     You  are 
a   dreamer,   I    am   a   builder.     You   are   of 
heaven,  but  I  am  only  of  earth.     I  searched 
Mexico  City  through   and   found   that   the 
owner   of    this   desert   lived   there;    and    I 
bought  the  whole  fifty  leagues  of  desert  for 
a  small  sum.     And  so  you  see  I  have  in  this, 
at  least,  lived  up  to  the  Lord's  Prayer :  '  Lead 
us  not  into  temptation ; '  for  no  man  will  be 
tempted  to  try  to  take  this  land  from  us.     I, 
in  turn,  have  given  all,  by  irrevocable  will,  to 
our  people.     There  is  not  a   human  being 
here,  from  the  priest  who  brought  you  here 
to   the  babe  born  within  this  hour,  who  is 
not  a  full  partner  in  all  the  real  interests  of 
this  city  of  the  desert.     We  have  no  disin- 
herited.    The  coming  together  of  my  people 
does   not   enrich    some   without   toil.      The 
landless  do  not  pay  tribute  to  the  landlords. 
All  are  equal  owners  in  natural  and  social 
values. 

"  The  curse  of  all  society  is  the  granting  of 
special  privileges  which  are  the  survivals  of 
the  divine  right  of  force  and  fraud.  I  deter- 
mined that  my  city  should  exist  for  the 
granting  and  preserving  of  equal  rights.  I 
determined  that  there  should  be  no  privileges 


—   132  — 

granted  to  the  few.  We  have  no  monopoly 
laws;  we  have  no  patent-rights,  or  copy- 
rights, even." 

"  But  is  that  just  ?  "  said  the  man.  *'  Has 
not  a  man  a  right  to  his  book  ? " 

**  He  has  a  right  to  sell  his  book  once,  but 
not  for  a  half-century.  It  is  just,  when  all 
privileges  are  abolished  together.  Then  each 
man  invents  for  all  and  all  the  rest  invent 
for  him.     It  is  a  free  exchange  of  benefits." 

The  man's  face  shone.  "  I  see  !  "  he  said. 
"The  incentive  to  invention  is  the  love  of 
it;  the  reward  is  the  pleasure  of  creating." 

She  arose  and  they  walked  on,  his  mind 
exalted  with  the  new  idea. 

'•  And  they  are  all  so  happy  and  pros- 
perous ! "  he  exclaimed,  his  mind  turning 
back  to  the  brown  girls  he  had  seen  gather- 
ing fruit  among  the  broad  leaves  as  he 
glided  down  from  the  mountain  the  day 
before. 

"  So  happy,  so  healthy,  and  so  beautiful," 
she  continued,  as  they  entered  a  retreat 
where  she  threw  herself  on  a  lion's  skin  that 
covered  a  broad  silken  couch.  He  sank  at 
her  side.  He  put  out  his  hand  to  touch  and 
take  hers  to  his  heart.  She  did  not  repel 
him.  She  did  not  take  her  hand  away.  She 
did  not  disdain  his  touch ;  but  somehow  her 


—  ^33  — 

soul  seemed  far,  far  away,  above  him,  so  far 
above  him.  So  much  larger  she  seemed  as 
he  sat  there  in  his  narrow  vanity  and  selfish- 
ness, that  he  felt  Hke  crouching  down  in  the 
dust  at  her  feet. 

How  tranquilly  grand  she  was  in  all  her 
silent  splendor.  Time  had  only  made  her 
more  glorious,  glorious  in  body  as  in  soul  it 
seemed  now,  now  as  she  sat  there  all  aglow 
and  flushed  with  the  excitement  of  their 
meeting.  But  it  was  only  momentary  with 
her,  this  flush  and  glow  and  glory  of  form 
and  face.  Beauty  there  was,  and  glow  and 
color,  fervor  and  fire  even;  but  it  was  the 
fire  and  glow  of  the  dying  sun. 

The  kindly  old  priest  came  back  after  a 
time  to  take  the  stranger  with  him.  They 
wandered  away  together,  and  in  a  quiet  way 
he  talked  very  earnestly  of  himself  to  the 
stranger,  and  as  nearly  as  can  be  recalled  as 
follows :  — 

"As  for  being  a  priest,  I  am  a  priest;  and 
yet  I  am  not  now  all  priest.  It  did  not 
seem  good  to  me  that  the  people  should  be 
ignorant  and  dependent  to  the  end  of  time. 
If  the  world  is  to  lay  aside  the  sword  and 
turn  to  the  ploughshare  it  must  be  done  intel- 
ligently if  done  permanently.  Love  must  be 
in  the  hearts  of  the  people  as  well  as  in  the 


—  134  — 

hearts  of  the  priests.  Religion  must  be  a 
fact,  not  merely  a  form.  The  people  are 
good,  the  world  is  beautiful,  and  God  is  love. 
Let  the  child  that  comes  laughing  down  out 
of  heaven  to  us,  clapping  its  tiny  hands  with 
delight  all  day  in  the  open  fields,  not  be  told 
that  it  is  sinful,  and  that  the  world  is  wicked, 
and  that  God  is  angr)-  with  this  beautiful 
world  which  he  has  made  for  man.  No,  no  I 
God  has  made  each  child  happy,  and  it  should 
be  forbidden  that  man,  priest  or  layman, 
should  make  it  unhappy.  What  evangelist 
has  ever  yet  gone  forth  preaching  faith  in 
man?  Not  one.  But  man  is  and  ever  has 
been  preaching  the  depravity  of  man.  Man 
seems  even  to  try  to  show  the  goodness  of 
God  by  publishing  his  own  wickedness.  It 
is  high  time  to  stop  this.  You  cannot  make 
even  a  child  good  by  forever  forcing  it  to 
believe  it  is  bad. 

*'  Let  mango  into  the  desert,  having  faith  in 
God  as  Moses  had,  but  above  all  faith  in 
man ;  and  with  the  gospel  of  peace  and  good 
will  he  can,  in  this  age,  when  savage  men 
and  savage  beasts  have  ceased  to  be,  build 
such  a  New  Jerusalem  as  the  world  has  never 
dreamed  of. 

"  Look  at  Salt  Lake,  —  ignorant  leaders,  a 
degrading  religion,  the  lowest  of  Europe  for 


—  135  — 

a  following,  one  tenth  to  the  church,  much 
time  and  hard  toil  to  the  temple ;  and  yet 
the  Union  to-day  contains  no  better,  happier, 
or  more  prosperous  people.  Therefore 
preach  that  man  is  good,  open  the  sea  doors 
and  let  hungry  Europe  come  to  people  our 
deserts." 

The  City  Builder  found  himself  being  irre- 
sistibly drawn  toward  this  thoughtful  man. 
He  asked  him  to  tell  how  it  was  that  he 
came  to  walk  out  and  down  from  his 
high  place  and  take  up  his  home  in  the 
desert. 

Very  deliberately  he  began,  after  some 
reflection,  and  spoke,  as  nearly  as  can  be 
recalled,  to  this  effect :  — 

"There  is  a  sort  of  Free  Masonry,  as  it 
were,  among  men  in  the  world  of  thought ;  a 
sort  of  common  ground,  common  sense,  in 
upper  worlds  of  thought.  The  eminent 
theologian  is  not  necessarily  a  more  religious 
man  than  the  eminent  mathematician.  The 
eminent  mathematician  is  not  of  necessity  a 
wiser  man  than  the  eminent  theologian.  But 
in  this  age  of  advancement  all  thinkers  of 
all  creeds  or  callings  have  a  community  of 
thought  on  the  common  ground  of  common- 
sense.  And  looking  out  and  down  from 
this,  oftentimes  with  their  gray  heads  laid 


—  un- 
close together,  they  have  had  their  hearts 
torn  continually  at  the  contemplation  of  the 
misery  of  men.  The  eminent  and  thoughtful 
theologians,  most  especially,  have  deplored 
and  continue  to  deplore  this  miser)-,  so  in- 
separably intenvoven,  in  the  present  order  of 
things,  with  falsehood  practised  in  the  name 
of  Jesus  Christ.  Now,  of  these  eminent  men 
of  the  church  there  are,  and  long  have  been, 
two  distinct  kinds :  one  the  kind  that  pities 
the  miser)'  and  deplores  the  ignorance  and 
deceit,  but  at  the  same  time  sees  no  way  out 
of  it  all,  and  believes  that  the  misery  and  the 
ignorance  and  the  deceit  are  inseparable, 
and  that  the  best  thing  to  do  is  to  leave 
things  as  they  are  and  go  right  along  with 
all  the  falsehoods  and  all  the  forms  and  all 
the  fees.  The  other  kind  of  man  among  the 
eminent  theologians  is  one  who  desires  to 
despise  forms  and  ceremonies  and  shams, 
and  to  walk  in  the  footprints  of  the  meek 
and  lowly  Nazarene,  without  pay  or  price. 
Of  course  there  is  a  third  class,  or  kind  of 
theologian,  so-called,  and  this  is,  by  far  the 
most  numerous.  But  remember,  I  have 
been  speaking  of  eminent  men,  of  thinkers, 
not  of  men  who  enter  the  church  as  they 
enter  the  army,  merely  for  the  money  and  to 
escape  that  one  first  command  of  God  when 


—  137  — 

man  was  driven  out  of  Eden,  which  was,  '  In 
the  sweat  of  thy  face  shalt  thou  eat  bread.' 
But  as  this  large  class  weighs  nothing  in  the 
world  of  thought,  I  need  not  speak  of  it 
again.  The  second  kind  referred  to,  how- 
ever, is  more  numerous  than  one  would  at 
first  believe.  So,  when  I  learned  that  an 
attempt  was  to  be  made  somewhere  in  the 
deserts  of  America  to  found  a  community 
as  an  example  to  the  world,  on  the  plain 
brief  precepts,  principles,  example,  and  ser- 
mons of  Jesus  Christ,  I  turned  my  back  on 
forms  and  begged  to  be  of  it.  And  then  I 
wanted  to  help  destroy  gold  and  silver,  the 
root  of  so  much  evil ;  and  having  long  had  a 
theory  that  gold  and  silver  grow,  as  mosses 
or  even  as  potatoes  grow,  I  wanted  time  and 
room  and  place  to  put  it  to  the  test." 

"And  it  is  you,  you  who  made  all  this 
gold  and  silver  that  glitters  everywhere  in 
such  profusion?  So  much  gold,  and  yet  a 
waiter ! " 

"  A  waiter  has  simply  combined  some  of 
God's  elements  and  put  them  in  favorable 
place  to  grow.  The  potato  which  Magellan 
found  in  Brazil  was  not  fit  to  eat.  Now  it 
feeds  half  the  world;  and  I  can  pave  the 
whole  world  with  gold." 

"  But,"   exclaimed   the   startled   stranger. 


-138- 

"this  discover^'  will  upset  the  whole  com- 
mercial world." 

'*  There  is  a  God,"  answered  his  com- 
panion, gravely ;  "  and  this  discovery,  like  the 
discovery  of  America,  like  the  discovery  of 
the  properties  of  steam,  electricity,  all  great 
and  good  things,  came  in  its  full  season. 
The  pursuit  of  wealth,  like  the  ancient  pur- 
suit of  war,  has  had  its  uses  as  well  as  its 
abuses.  The  world  in  its  swift  progress  is 
fast  leaving  the  latter  far  behind,  —  though 
there  are  still  those  who  think  the  butchery 
of  their  brothers  a  noble  pursuit  and  a  fair 
expression  of  that  law  of  nature  which  in- 
sists on  the  survival  of  the  fittest;  and  it 
may  be  centuries  still  before  the  dull  and 
unthinking  masses  cease  to  regard  hoarding 
as  the  highest  and  chief  est  of  pursuits.  But 
now,  since  we  know  the  secret  of  making 
gold  grow  in  the  recesses  of  rocks,  as  mosses 
grow  on  the  outside,  they  will  no  longer  hoard 
gold.  And  that  is  the  death-blow  to  the 
miser  and  the  money-lender. 

"  Vou  know,  when  gold  was  first  found  in 
California,  English  bankers  sent  commis- 
sions to  America,  urging  that  silver  only  be 
made  the  commercial  basis.  So  you  see 
that  we  have  only  to  find  gold  in  such 
masses  as  we  have  silver,  a  thing  still  pos- 


—  139  — 

sible,  even  in  the  mountains  of  Russia  or  the 
Americas,  to  destroy  it  as  a  basis  of  trade. 
And  ah  what  a  triumph,  what  a  day  of 
emancipation  when  we  shall  proclaim  our 
discovery  to  the  world,  and  Russia  shall  let 
loose  her  millions  from  the  mines  in  the 
Ural ;  when  the  bravest  and  best  men  of  our 
own  great  land  shall  cease  to  destroy  rivers 
and  forests  and  come  out  from  the  Rocky 
Mountain  caverns  to  the  sun  and  the  plains 
and  —  " 

"  And  commerce  shall  cease  ? " 

"  Commerce,  in  its  best  estate  will  begin." 

"And  your  currency  ?  " 

"  Will  be  honor;  as  it  is  now,  in  nine  cases 
out  of  ten,  nine  dollars  in  ten.  A  merchant 
of  long  standing  and  stainless  name  only 
gives  his  name,  his  check,  in  payment.  Is  a 
nation  less  than  a  man  ? 

"I  tell  you  that  commerce,  free  and  open 
interchange  between  men  and  nations,  will 
only  begin  when  honor  is  made  a  basis, 
instead  of  base  metal,  —  when  this  mighty 
nation  of  United  States  shall  say  to  the 
nations  of  the  earth,  as  it  said  to  its  own 
people  in  the  late  great  war.  Here  is  my 
honor,  my  promise  to  pay ;  I  have  done  with 
shifting  and  varying  values  that  wreck 
and  impoverish  and  make  miserable  my 
people  —  " 


—  140  — 

"But  if  — ?" 

"  There  should  be  no  such  words.  We 
have  only  to  insist  on  it,  to  persist  in  it,  and 
how  eagerly  other  nations  will  follow !  and 
then  the  poet's  dream,  •  the  federation  of 
the  world  ! '  " 


XVIII.  —  GIVE  US  THIS   DAY  OUR 
DAILY  BREAD. 

The  Day  sat  by  with  banner  furled ; 

His  battered  shield  hung  on  the  wall ; 
One  great  star  walked  the  upper  world, 

All  purple-robed,  in  Stately  Hall ; 
Some  unseen  reapers  gathered  golden  sheaves, 
The  skies  were  as  the  tree  of  life  in  yellow  leaves. 

God's  poor  of  Hebron  rested.     Then 
Straightway  unto  their  presence  drew 

A  captain  with  his  band  of  men 
And  smote  His  poor,  and  well-nigh  slew. 

Saying,  "  Hence,  ye  poor  !  Behold,  the  king  this  night 

Comes  forth  with  torch  and  dance  and  loud  delight." 

His  poor,  how  much  they  cared  to  see ! 

How  begged  they,  prone,  to  see,  to  hear ! 
But  spake  the  captain  angrily, 

And  drove  them  forth  with  sword  and  spear, 
And  shut  the  gate ;  and  when  the  king  passed  through. 
These  lonely  poor  —  they  knew  not  what  to  do. 

Lo,  then  a  soft-voiced  stranger  said : 
"  Come  ye  with  me  a  little  space. 
I  know  where  torches  gold  and  red 
Gleam  down  a  peaceful,  ample  place; 
Where  song  and  perfume  fill  the  restful  air, 
And  men  speak  scarce  at  all.     The  King  is  there." 

They  passed;  they  sat  a  grass-set  hill  — 
What  king  hath  carpets  like  to  this  ? 

What  king  hath  music  like  the  trill 
Of  crickets  'mid  these  silences  — 

These  perfumed  silences,  that  rest  upon 

The  soul  like  sunlight  on  a  hill  at  dawn  ? 


—  142  — 

Bcfiold  what  blessings  in  the  air ! 

What  b.  >  in  the  dew  ! 

These  ohv'j  _:r  amis  in  prayer; 

They  turn  their  leaves,  God  reads  them  through  ; 
Yon  Hlies  where  the  falling  water  sing^i 
Are  fairer -robed  than  chorister-*  of  kings. 

Lift  now  your  heads  !  yon  golden  bars 
That  buil  '  ■'         rch  of  heaven,  seas 

Of  silver-^..  en  stars  — 

Yea,  th-  ' 

For  yundci  '.d 

Of  silver  seas  that  wui  these  ships  of  ^old. 

The>  • 
Tl» 

The  awlul  the  sky, 

The  beuc  ..-..^Ui,  of  the  dew; 
And  frunt  that  day  His  poor  were  richer  far 
Tlun  all  such  kings  as  keep  where  follies  are. 

1  HE  Stranger,  having  turned  aside  from 
the  meditative  priest,  felt  himself  drifting 
again  into  Miriam's  presence.  The  sun 
had  gone  down ;  the  stars  were  out,  and  yet 
it  was  not  night,  or  at  least,  it  was  not  dark. 
Light,  light  ever)'where  !  Not  jets  of  li;(ht, 
like  gas,  or  electric  lights,  but  level  sheets  of 
light,  soft,  large,  and  luminous  as  the  face  of 
the  moon.  But  more  of  this  hereafter. 
'*  You  will  dine  with  us  now  ?" 
He  wanted  to  say  that  he  would  like  to 
sit  and  hear  her  and  her  only  forever  and 
forever;  for  that  had  been   the  truth.     He 


—  143  — 

could  not  have  dared  to  lie  to  her,  even  in 
compliment ;  but  he  assented  in  silence,  and 
she  led  on  through  the  luminous  woods  and 
walls  of  glass.  They  finally  entered  what 
seemed  to  be  a  grove,  with  a  great  table 
reaching  far  down  and  out  of  sight  under 
broad-sweeping  leaves. 

He  sat  at  her  right  hand.  Grave  and 
learned  men,  beautiful  and  silent  women, 
brown  and  black  and  pearly  white,  were 
here  and  there  between  the  men,  like  fruit 
among  the  foliage  overhead. 

He  could  see  the  stars  and  the  moon  in 
the  blue  sky  through  the  leaves. 
"  What  will  you  do  if  it  rains  ?  " 
With  a  finger  partly  raised  to  her  lips,  for 
the  music  and  dancing  were  about  to  begin, 
she  said  kindly,  as  she  leaned  her  face  so 
close  to  his  that  he  breathed  the  perfume  of 
Jier  hair :  — 

"  The  sky  which  you  see  is  seen  through  a 
sky  of  glass." 

The  musicians,  some  distance  back  and 
up  in  the  boughs,  like  singing  birds,  were 
not  of  the  old  and  tired  type,  bald  and 
exhausted  from  bad  air  and  bad  lights,  and 
broken  by  care  and  anxiety ;  they  were 
ruddy  and  merry  and  full  of  the  music  of 
their   own    high   spirits,  —  girls  here,   boys 


—  M4  — 

there,  middle-aged  men  and  middle-aged 
women ;  yet  all  young,  young  with  the  eter- 
nal youth  of  love  and  content  and  kindliness. 

A  note !  a  bar!  a  breath  of  warm  wind  in 
the  trees  !  Zephyrs  ?  birds  ?  Eolian  harps  ? 
a  far-off  call  of  cooling  waters  ?  What  was 
it,  and  what  did  it  all  mean  ? 

Can  you  conceive  of  silent  music  ?  Well, 
this  was  silent  music.  At  least  it  was  music 
without  noise.  We  need  say  no  more  now, 
we  might  be  misunderstood  were  we  to  say 
less.  It  was  music  without  the  noise  that 
so  insolently  attends  ordinary  music.  May 
we  say  it  was  noiseless  melody  ? 

It  v^as  not  the  music  of  the  civilized  city, 
it  was  the  new  music  of  the  new  order  that 
is  to  come,  —  the  wild,  free,  far-off,  and  effort- 
less melody  of  the  desert  and  of  the  silent 
children  of  the  desert ;  of  love,  peace,  pleas- 
ure, rest.  Suddenly,  on  a  glass  stage  to  the 
right  and  left  and  among  the  great  banana- 
leaves  and  lofty  ferns  with  fronded  palms 
that  pushed  against  the  sky  of  glass  in 
heaven,  the  dancers  glided.  And  they  too 
were  noiseless,  and  they  glided  as  if  in  the 
air.  The  glass  was  so  perfect  that,  like  the 
artificial  sky  overhead,  it  was  invisible. 

To  and  fro,  forward,  back,  bowed  or 
erect,  singly  or   in  couples,  they  sang  and 


—  145  — 

sang  in  the  movements  of  their  most  perfect 
bodies.  The  leaves  and  ferns  were  very 
abundant  and  very  broad,  and  these  dancing 
girls  were  natural. 

Then  slowly  all  sound,  all  movement  of 
all  things  ceased.  Slowly  and  unobtrusively 
a  white-haired  man,  far  down  among  the 
trees,  rose  up  and  solemnly  bowed  his  head. 
Then  all  heads  were  bowed  with  his ;  each 
one  present  repeated  the  Lord's  Prayer,  and 
that  was  all. 

As  he  took  his  seat,  a  beautiful  woman 
arose  and  slowly  proceeded  to  read  the 
Sermon  on  the  Mount. 

Meantime  the  dinner  went  on  as  if  no 
stranger  were  present.  In  fact,  the  stranger 
was  not  allowed  to  feel  that  he  was  a 
stranger. 

And  such  a  dinner !  —  such  milk  and  honey 
such  fruit,  such  oils!  Surely  the  wearied 
man  had  come  at  last  upon  the  land  of 
milk  and  honey.  The  Lord  had  surely  led 
him  through  the  green  pastures  by  the  still 
waters. 

And  what  a  continual  melody  of  melodies 
even  after  the  girls  had  melted  away  one' 
by  one  from  among  the  ferns  and  banana- 
leaves,  and  the  musicians  and  all  had  set- 
tled into  place  at  table  !  -  a  sort  of  melodious 


10 


—  146  — 

silence  !  No  rattling  of  knives  on  rattling 
plates,  in  the  carving  and  handling  and 
mutilation  of  meats,  for  of  meats  there  were 
none  ;  no  coming  and  going  of  servants ;  no 
rattling  and  rasping  of  feet  on  marble  floors  ; 
they  sat  with  their  feet  on  the  soft,  white, 
natural  sands  of  the  desert. 

But  this  one  dining-hall,  or  temple  to  mel- 
ody, was  only  an  example  of  a  constantly 
increasing  number  of  a  similar  and  yet  very 
dissimilar  character ;  for  while  the  people 
had  their  individual  homes,  they  loved  to 
come  often  to  these  pLasant  dining  clubs  or 
halls. 

The  dining-hall  which  was  devoted  to 
serious  themes,  and  was  preferred  by  ven- 
erable men  and  women  of  earnest  thought, 
was  a  smaller  and  less  pretentious  place. 
Yet  even  here,  peace,  repose,  the  perfect 
good-manners,  a  low  voice,  an  equanimity 
of  soul  and  serenity  of  all  things,  all  things 
keeping  harmonious  mtjlody  with  lisping 
leaves  overhead  and  soft,  warm  sands  under- 
foot. 

The  hall  where  the  men  and  women  who 
were  entirely  devoted  to  science  loved  to 
meet  and  dine  was  also  peculiar  to  itself,  as 
were  those  of  poetry  and  painting.  But 
each  and  all  had  this  dominating  preference 


—  147  — 

for  nature's  harmony  of  color,  harmony  of 
sense,  harmony  of  soul. 

And  now  let  us  mention  one  thing  here 
before  it  is  quite  forgotten.  He  had  been 
here  many  days,  had  sat  at  many  dinners; 
yet  one  day,  when  passing  with  his  good 
clergyman  through  a  herd  of  fat  cattle,  he 
suddenly  remembered  that  he  had  not  tasted 
roast  beef  since  coming  to  the  place. 

"  You  have  not  tasted  roast  beef  nor  any 
other  kind  of  meat.  Olive-oil,  butter,  eggs, 
cream,  and  so  on  have  been  your  closest 
approach  to  meat  eating,"  said  the  good 
man,  smiling. 

"  And  you  do  not  eat  animal  food  ?  " 

"  We  do  not  want  animal  food  here,  and 
we  do  not  need  animal  food  here ;  and  so, 
of  course,  we  do  not  eat  our  sleek  and  mild- 
eyed  companions." 

"  Of  what  use,  then,  are  your  herds  ?  " 

"  For  milk,  butter,  cheese ;  besides  that, 
when  these  cattle  grow  so  old  that  they  are 
helpless,  they  are  driven  to  a  remote  place 
and  relieved  of  life  by  a  painless  death ;  then 
we  permit  ourselves  to  use  their  hides." 

"  Yes,  you  must  have  shoes." 

"  Not  at  all  necessary,  not  at  all.  Did 
ever  man  see  such  pretty  feet  as  Indian 
women  have  ?     There  have  never  been  seen 


—  148  — 

on  earth  such  small  and  pretty  feet  as  the 
American  Indian  women  have  always  had. 
And  yet  they,  even  in  the  North,  are  and  have 
always  been,  so  far  as  possible,  a  bare-footed 
people.  And  here  it  is  not  only  possible  for 
our  women  as  well  as  men  to  go  barefooted, 
but  it  is  even  desirable  for  comfort.  No,  we 
do  not  really  need  much  leather  here,"  added 
he.     •'  Now,  when  I  work  in  the  field  —  " 

In  his  surprise  at  the  idea  of  the  Estab- 
lished Church  working  in  the  fields  the 
stranger  must  have  suddenly  turned  his 
head ;  for  he  looked  at  him  inquiringly  for 
a  second  and  then  continued  :  — 

"  As  I  was  going  on  to  say,  when  I  work 
in  the  fields  I  always  go  barefooted,  for  I 
like  the  touch  of  the  soft  soil  and  the  warm 
sand.  It  makes  my  blood  run  like  wine, 
and  I  live  in  my  feet  as  well  as  in  my  head 
at  such  a  time.  My  wife,  however,  still 
wears  shoes  when  she  does  her  weaving  or 
spinning." 

'•  Your  wife  ?  weaving  ?  Pardon  me,  you 
are  jesting." 

**  Nay,  you  shall  see  her  at  her  weaving 
some  day,  and  soon.  With  us  the  abolition 
of  all  special  privileges  has  made  it  neces- 
sary' for  all  to  toil.  But  when  all  men  toil, 
no   man    need   work    hard   or   beyond    his 


—  149  — 

strength.  Work,  in  fact,  has  become  a  re- 
creation, a  necessity  of  perfect  enjoyment." 

"  But  even  when  all  toil,  work  must  be  a 
hardship." 

"  Not  at  all.  Two  hours  a  day  at  any 
employment  will  support  one  nicely." 

"  But  do  the  rich  work  also  ?  What  pres- 
sure brings  them  to  toil  ?  " 

"  There  are  no  rich  in  the  sense  in  which 
you  use  the  word.  Of  course  some  men  care 
more  for  wealth  than  others,  but  as  they 
must  earn  it  they  must  work  for  it.  The 
State  does  not  equalize  possessions,  but  it 
equalizes  opportunities;  and  there  are  no 
wide  differences  in  possessions  such  as  the 
outside  world  shows.  Ponder  well  on  this, 
my  son.  Inequalities  in  condition  are  born 
out  of  special  favors  granted  by  the  State  to 
a  few.  There  are  two  ways  to  cure  this 
evil :  Extend  the  same  favors  to  all,  or  with- 
hold them  from  the  few.  We  believe  in  the 
latter  method,  which  is  more  truly  in  har- 
mony with  the  Declaration  of  Independence. 
With  us,  possession  is  dependent  upon  per- 
sonal toil  or  the  free  gift  of  friendship." 

The  man  pondered.  "  It  is  wonderfully 
simple,  but  it  does  not  get  back  of  natural 
differences." 

"  We  do  not  propose  to  question  nature," 


—  ISO- 
said  the  priest,  with  a  lofty  look  on  his  face. 
"  The  powers  of  the  human  brain  are  in- 
finitely varied.  The  dullard  in  one  direction 
may  be  wondrously  skilful  in  another.  Men 
differ  from  each  other  very  little  more  than 
birds  of  the  same  species.  Equality  of 
chance  will  prove  this.  Freedom  is  the 
magic  word,  and  has  been  through  all 
ages.  We  are  nearing  the  fulfilment  of  its 
prophecy." 

The  man  now  spoke  hesitatingly ;  he  had 
another  question  to  ask  :  — 

'•  But  are  there  not  unpleasant  tasks  which 
all  shirk  ?     Is  not  some  force  necessary  .''  " 

"  I  see  the  question,"  said  the  priest. 
'*  There  is  no  force  in  our  colony  to  control 
the  action  of  the  individual,  save  only  when 
the  action  interferes  with  the  equal  freedom 
of  the  rest.  We  have  no  slaves  on  whom  to 
throw  our  menial  tasks.  All  menial  service 
has  disappeared." 

"  But  there  must  be  unpleasant  tasks," 
persisted  the  man. 

"  There  were  at  first ;  but  as  all  were  free 
to  do  them  or  not,  the  most  unpleasant  soon 
commanded  the  highest  wages,  and  the  em- 
ployers were  forced  to  abolish  them  alto- 
gether or  make  them  pleasant.  It  was 
marvellous  how  soon  invention  turned  itself 


—  151  — 

in  the  direction  of  making  heavy  tasks  hght, 
and  changing  or  abolishing  whole  industries. 
'  Any  industry  which  depends  upon  the 
slavery  of  a  single  one  of  my  people,'  said 
our  great  leader,  '  will  be  abolished,  because 
all  my  people  must  be  free.'  This  law  of 
freedom  has  made  every  mine  light  as  day, 
every  factory  silent  and  sunny,  and  every 
menial  task  a  source  of  forward  movement, 
freedom  to  freemen." 

The  good  priest's  face  glowed  as  he  spoke. 
His  smile  had  tender  sympathy  in  it. 

The  man  caught  at  the  priest's  cloak  as 
he  rose.  "  Tell  me  more  ! "  he  cried.  "  The 
light  is  breaking  for  me." 

"  Go  see  for  yourself,"  smiled  the  priest. 
You  will  not  find  one  noisome  workshop, 
not  one  dark  and  damp  mine,  nor  one  fur- 
nace-like place  of  toil  in  the  city.  There 
will  be  a  lack  of  many  things  which  have 
been  considered  necessary  to  civilization; 
but  we  say  that  any  industry  or  enterprise 
which  is  based  upon  the  enforced  toil  of  our 
fellow-men  is  not  civilization;  it  is  the  in- 
famy of  civiUzation.  Come  with  me.  You 
will  not  find  a  toil-worn  face,  nor  a  gnarled 
and  trembling,  work-scarred  hand  in  this 
city  of  ours.  Every  man,  woman,  and  child 
in  this  colony  can  throw  the  head  back  and 


—  152  — 

laugh  with  joy  of  life  and  an  unclouded 
future.     Come  —  to  see  is  to  be  convinced." 

The  bewildered  man  rose  and  followed 
the  priest.  ''It  is  like  the  law  of  gravity," 
he  muttered.  ■•  It  reaches  everywhere,  this 
law  of  equal  freedom." 

"  I  '11  be  patient  with  you,"  said  the  priest. 
'*  It  troubled  me  also.  No  one  but  Miriam 
comprehended  it  at  first." 


XIX.  --  THE   TOIL    OF   GOD. 

Behold  the  silvered  mists  that  rise 
From  all-night  toiling  in  the  corn. 

The  mists  have  duties  up  the  skies, 
The  skies  have  duties  with  the  morn ; 

While  all  the  world  is  full  of  earnest  care 

To  make  the  fair  world  still  more  wondrous  fair 

More  lordly  fair  ;  the  stately  morn 

Moves  down  the  walk  of  golden  wheat ; 

Her  guards  of  honor  gild  the  corn 
In  golden  pathway  for  her  feet ; 

The  purpled  hills  she  crowns  in  crowns  of  gold, 

And  God  walks  with  us  as  He  walked  of  old. 

^H,  the  mother's  love  here!  the  lover's 
love  here !  the  love  in  the  hearts  of  all  here ! 
the  God  in  the  hearts  of  all ! 

Our  unfortunate  city-builder,  who  had 
wrought  so  hard  on  his  mountain-side  by 
the  sea  and  yet  had  failed  so  signally,  sought 
out,  at  every  opportunity,  the  silent  and 
wonderful  woman  who  had  done  all  this 
since  they  parted  in  Egypt.  He  wanted  to 
sit  at  her  feet  and  learn.  How  helpless  he 
was,  he  now  began  to  know  too  well.  Would 
she  only  teach  him,  tell  him  how  to  go  on ! 

They  sat  one  day  by  the  fountain  in  the 
Toltec  ruins.  The  birds  were  busy,  the  bees 
were  busy. 


—  154  — 

"  Yes,  it  is  all  just  like  that  here,"  she  said 
at  length.  "  We  all  work  together  and 
bring  our  sweets  to  the  common  hive,  —  not 
because  of  law,  but  because  of  freedom  and 
plenty." 

He  bowed  his  head  in  meditation  for  a 
time,  then  said  :  — 

*'  You  have  succeeded.  I  have  failed.  It 
is  but  right  that  you  tell  me  why  it  is  that  I, 
the  strong  man,  should  have  failed,  while 
you,  the  woman,  and  not  so  strong  in  body, 
succeeded.     You  will  tell  me  ?  " 

After  some  hesitation  she  began  and  went 
on  slowly  ;  for  she  was  very  far  from  strong  ; 

'*  In  the  first  place  you  failed  by  tempting 
men  to  leave  you  and  turn  back  to  the  task- 
masters and  the  flesh-pots  of  Egj'pt.  Why, 
had  Moses  himself  set  his  children  down  on 
a  mountain-side  in  sight  of  some  beautiful 
cit}',  and  offered  them  the  choice  to  stay  or 
go,  how  many  would  have  remained  with 
him  and  gone  forward  with  him  to  build 
Jerusalem  ?  William  the  Conqueror  burned 
his  ships  behind  him,  and  so  kept  his  sixty 
thousand  at  his  side.  Even  the  Pilgrim 
Fathers  would  have  returned,  could  they 
have  consistently  done  so,  as  William  Penn 
returned." 

There  was  a  long  silence.     The  bees  and 


—  155  — 

the  birds,  and  the  grasshoppers  that  sung  in 
the  grass  at  their  feet  had  it  all  their  own 
way.     Then  she  went  on  :  — 

"  No,  we  here,  removed  from  almost  every 
temptation,  do  not  allow  ourselves  nearly  the 
liberty  to  come  and  go  and  evade  the  first 
great  law  of  God  that  you  allowed  to  the 
lowest  of  the  low,  the  weakest  of  the  weak, 
and  in  the  midst  of  every  temptation." 

"  And  that  first  great  law  of  God  is  —  ?  " 

"  In  the  sweat  of  thy  face  shalt  thou  eat 
bread  till  thou  returnest  to  the  ground." 

He  caught  in  his  breath  and  said,  "  Why, 
I  thought  the  first  great  law  of  God  was  the 
love  of  God  and  to  *  love  thy  neighbor  as 
thyself.'" 

"  Hear  me,  hear  me,"  she  said.  "  The  very 
first,  last  words  of  God  to  man,  as  the  gates 
of  Paradise  closed  behind,  were  these  :  '  In 
the  sweat  of  f/i_y  face  —  not  in  the  sweat  of 
the  face  of  another  —  thou  shalt  eat  bread 
till  thou  returnest  to  the  ground ;  '  and  we 
search  the  Bible  in  vain  for  any  single  ex- 
ception in  favor  of  any  human  being,  be  he 
priest,  prophet,  president,  or  king.  Why, 
even  the  emperor  of  the  heathen  Mongol 
must  plough  and  sow  his  field  in  the  sweat  of 
his  face.  And  so  firmly  fixed  is  this  law  of 
God,  estabhshed  in  the  laws  of  nature,  that 


-156- 

the  experience  of  six  thousand  years  testifies 
that  this  is  the  only  path  to  perfect  health. 
This  is  a  positive  law,  the  first  law,  and  a 
positive  law  that  admits  of  no  equivocation. 
It  fell  from  the  voice  of  God  centuries  before 
Moses  reached  up  his  hands  to  receive  the 
tablets  where  His  finger,  amid  thunder  and 
flame,  had  traced  the  negative  laws  of  the 
Decalogue." 

"  The  negative  laws  ?  " 

"  As  I  said  before,  this  one  first  law,  that 
thou  shalt  eat  thy  bread  in  the  sweat  of  thy 
face,  is  a  positive  law.  The  Decalogue  is 
almost  entirely  negative.  But  only  let  the 
one  first  great  command  be  strictly  observed 
and  the  Decalogue  will  never  be  broken. 
It  is  the  one  continual  effort  to  escape  this 
one  first  command  that  brings  man  in  col- 
lision with  the  laws  of  Sinai.  As  for  the  law 
of  love,  it  is  as  natural  as  nature  ;  though 
the  true  reading  is  not  as  you  read  it.  After 
the  love  of  God,  which  is  inseparable  from 
all  goodness,  you  are  commanded  to  '  love 
thy  neighbor  as  thyself.'  Do  you  under- 
stand?" 

'*  Certainly,  and  so  I  have  tried  and  tried 
to  do." 

*'  But  have  you  not  tried  to  love  him  more  ? 
Mark  you,  you  are  to  '  love  thy  neighbor  as 


—  157  — 

thyself ; '  not  more  than  thyself,  but  as  thy- 
self. Now  as  you  love  the  good  that  is  in 
you,  so  shall  you  love  the  good  that  is  in 
your  neighbor ;  as  you  hate  the  evil  that  is 
in  you,  so  shall  you  hate  and  abhor  the  evil 
that  is  in  your  neighbor,  —  yea,  hate  it  and 
abhor  it." 

A  long  time  he  held  his  head  low  in 
thought  now,  and  she  sat  listening  to  the 
birds,  bees,  grasshoppers,  God.  Then  he 
said :  — 

"  Why  may  not  any  resolute  souls,  if  wise 
enough  and  strong  enough,  step  out  from 
the  world  and  into  this  unpeopled  middle 
land,  anywhere,  anywhere  from  here  up  to 
Canada,  or  even  down  to  Patagonia,  and  do 
much  as  you  have  done  here,  with  this 
example  of  yours  before  them  ?  " 

"It  should  be  done  and  it  will  be  done, 
over  and  over  again.  The  mistake  has  been 
in  man's  not  believing  in  man.  Man  has 
said  man  is  bad  ;  kings,  politicians,  creedists, 
have  kept  man  arrayed  against  man  since 
the  dawn  of  history.  To-day  Europe  keeps 
millions  and  millions  of  men  standing  with 
guns  and  swords  in  hand  to  slay  their  broth- 
ers —  Christians  !  But  this  nation  has  grown 
beyond  that;  and  now  the  people  of  this 
city  have  grown  beyond   the   idle   lawyers. 


-158- 

idle  politicians,  and  idle  creedists  who  con- 
tinually tell  us  that  man  is  bad,  evil,  weak, 
worthless,  and  cannot  be  trusted  to  go  forth 
from  slavery,  as  Moses  went  forth,  and 
found  his  own  city  in  the  wilderness." 

*'  Then  I  shall  abandon  my  mountainside 
above  the  city,  and  lead  my  people  as  Moses 
led  his  people,  and  build  my  city  in  the 
wilderness  as  you  have  built  yours." 

He  was  ver)-  much  in  earnest,  but  she 
raised  her  thin  hand  in  protest  as  she 
said :  — 

**No;  'what  man  putteth  his  hand  to  the 
plough  and  looketh  back  ? '  Go  forward  to 
the  end  as  you  began.  An  example  of  great 
effort,  even  a  great  failure,  is  worth  much  to 
the  world  now.  The  foundations  of  cities 
planted  by  man  in  mud  and  malaria  are 
shaken.  Take  New  York,  for  example,  once 
a  small  city  of  great  men,  now  a  great  city 
of  small  men,  who  contend  and  strive  and 
struggle ;  a  city  continually  divided  against 
itself.  And  so  we  know  that  it  shall  one 
day  have  no  place  on  the  map  of  the  world. 
No,  not  wars  nor  earthquakes,  nothing  of 
that  sort  as  of  old  when  walls  were  built, 
but  that  lowest  of  all  low  pursuits  and  the 
coarsest  of  all  human  qualities,  commerce, 
money-getting,  —  this  is  in  her  heart  to  her 


—  159  — 

ruin  ;  this  is  tlie  baneful  wooden  horse  hold- 
ing destruction  within." 

"  Yes,  yes.  And  what  a  miracle  has  been 
wrought  here  ! " 

"  It  is  not  a  miracle,"  she  hastened  to  say ; 
"  I  simply  removed  all  friction.  As  for  that 
stupendous  work  which  is  being  done,"  and 
she  lifted  her  face  toward  the  glittering  sea 
of  spires  and  towers  beyond,  "  it  has  cost 
scarcely  a  thought ;  and  it  has  cost  no  man 
any  waste  of  time.  The  eminent  humanita- 
rians who  gathered  about  me  here  had  time, 
as  never  before  in  the  history  of  man,  to 
really  think  and  really  be  humanitarians. 
There  was  an  old  mercenary  saying  that 
time  is  money.  We  esteem  the  man  who 
saves  time  to  man  as  the  only  real  million- 
naire.  He  is  not  only  a  millionnaire,  he  is 
the  emancipator  of  the  human  race." 

"  Yet  Ruskin  has  said  that  man  should 
first  set  man  to  work,  then  the  cattle,  then 
the  machine." 

"  Yes,  and  Morris  is  teaching  that  we 
should  turn  back  to  the  old  pastoral  times, 
and  live  as  the  shepherds  lived."  She  said 
this  with  a  sad  shake  of  the  head.  "  Why, 
this,"  she  went  on,  "  is  like  as  if  the  two 
great  captains  of  Moses  had  turned  back  to 
the  flesh-pots  of   Egypt.     But  at  the   same 


—  i6o  — 

time  these  teachings  show  us  that  the  world 
is  ripe,  ready  for  open  revolt  against  the 
hard  and  bitter  conditions  of  its  people." 

She  paused,  and  he  took  the  occasion 
offered  to  look  her  in  the  face,  and  with  bit- 
ter remembrances  ask  her  again  why  he  had 
failed  so  sadly  ;  why  his  long  endeavor  to 
build  up  a  city  on  the  mountain-side  should 
have  been  so  despised  ;  for  he  felt  she  had 
not  told  all. 

At  last  she  said  slowly,  sadly,  "  Why,  then, 
in  the  second  place  you  failed  because  of 
your  vanity,  your  painful  and  most  pitiful 
vanity." 

The  sudden  flush  of  pain  that  swept  over 
his  face  as  his  eyes  fell  before  her  told  how 
truly  the  probe  had  gone  to  the  heart,  and 
how  necessary  was  the  cruel  surgerj-.  After 
a  pause,  and  leaning  forward  her  face,  she 
said  in  the  kindest  and  most  pitying  manner: 

"  Your  vanity  made  you  choose  a  conspic- 
uous place,  where  you  could  daily  proclaim 
from  your  housetop  how  good  and  humble 
and  industrious  and  unselfish  you  were.  You 
thrust  yourself  and  your  new  ideas  in  the 
midst  of  hard  men  who  had  but  the  one  old 
idea  of  getting  and  getting ;  and  then  you 
proclaimed  by  word  and  deed  that  if  a  man 
smote  the  one  cheek  you  would  cheerfully 


—  i6i  — 

turn  the  other,  and  that  if  a  man  took  from 
you  one  garment  you  would  not  only  give 
another  but  the  whole  suit ;  and  so,  right  in 
the  face  of  the  Lord's  Prayer,  you  led  men 
into  temptation.'" 

The  weight  of  her  truth  bowed  his  head 
low  before  her  once  more ;  for  he  saw  that 
he  had,  after  all,  been  but  a  boastful  Phari- 
see.    Finally,  she  went  on :  — 

"  The  world  is  dotted  all  over  with  good 
men  who  are  trying  to  do  good  in  secret ;  but 
he  who  proclaims  it,  — '  verily  he  hath  his 
reward.'  Yet  go  forward.  You  have  not 
failed ;  you  only  have  not  yet  succeeded." 

Then  from  far  away,  as  if  from  that  other 
world,  came  her  words.  His  words :  "  Be  ye 
wise  as  serpents,  but  as  harmless  as  doves. 
.    ,     .     I  leave  my  peace  with  you." 


II 


XX.  —  WHEN  MAN  IS  NOT  WATCH- 
ING  MAN. 

I  think  the  bees,  the  blessed  bees. 

Are  better,  wiser  far  than  we. 
The  very  wild  birds  in  the  trees 

Ar  1  to  me  ; 

Fur  I  ^aa  and  air 

Are  theirs,  and  not  a  bit  of  care. 

Wha'  ;'-.  trees? 

\V  ;  ■    ['->  riowers? 

Bchuld  their  perfect  harmuru 

Their  common  board,  the  lo a.jurs  I 

Say,  why  should  man  be  less  than  these, 
The  happy  birds,  the  hoarding  bees  ? 

The  birds  ?     What  bird  hath  envied  bird 
That  he  sin;4s  on  as  God  hath  willed? 
Vet  man  —  what  song  of  nun  is  heard 
But  he  is  stoned,  or  cursed,  or  killed? 
-rs  of  the  air, 
•-His  care. 

O  brown  bee  in  your  hon<?y  house  ? 

Could  :  it  best 

To  comni  arouse, 

To  common  toil,  to  common  rest. 
To  common  share  our  sweets  with  men  — 
We  surely  would  be  better  then. 


1  HREE  Other  things  I  constantly  wonder 
at  here,"  was  his  remark  to  her  one  morning  : 
*'  The   mar\'ellous  growth   of   your  groves  ; 


—  163  — 

the  law  and  order ;  and  the  large  intelligence 
of  your  people." 

"  In  the  first  place,  to  answer  you  in  order, 
we  have  here  three  hundred  and  sixty-five 
days  in  the  year,  in  which  to  toil,  fashion, 
build.      Besides    that,    these   trees,   plants, 
cereals,  and  all  things  that  spring  from  the 
earth,  have  twelve  full  and  fervid  months  in 
which  to  grow,  while   in  most  places  they 
have  but  four,  six,  or  seven   at  the  farthest. 
So  you  see  that  we  have  three  or  four  times 
as  many  days  and  months  in  the  year  here 
as  in  many  places.     All  that  this  desert,  so- 
called,  was  waiting  for  came  when  we  brought 
the  rain  and  led  the  water  down  from  the  trout 
streams  or  up  from  our  artesian  wells.     The 
water  followed  these  channels  and  furrows 
down  through  the  dust  and  mud,  the   dust 
was  watered,  the  mud  was  drained,  all  by 
means  of  this  same  force,  and  in  this  same 
furrow  we  planted  the  banana-slip,  the  olive- 
branch,  the  mulberry-tree,  and  all  other  sorts 
of  trees  from  all  lands.     Then  we  had  only 
to  widen  and  duplicate  the  furrows,  and  sow 
them  with  rice,  then  dam  the  furrow,  and  it 
was  flooded  and  brought  to  perfection  with- 
out further  effort.     Cane,  wheat,  maize,  all 
things  under  the  sun  in  fact,  came  to  us  and 
nourished  us  almost  without  a  stroke  or  bit 


—  164  — 

of  help  from  our  hands.  And  now  here  is 
one  thing  I  must  beg  you  to  note  distinctly. 
We  not  only  have  had  all  the  time  that  God 
has  given  us  because  of  a  kindly  clime,  but 
we  have  liusbanded  it.  We  have  cherished 
and  housed  and  husbanded  time  as  others 
do  gold." 

He  looked  into  her  face  inquiringly. 

*'  1  will  e.xplain,"  she  said.  '•  Civilized 
man,  so<alled,  spends  his  time  in  watching 
his  fellow-man.  How  many  men  in  eleven 
are  really  at  work  .••  One !  Yes,  in  the 
greatest  city  of  earth,  London,  it  takes  ten 
men  to  watch  and  keep  that  one  man  at 
work.  In  the  country  the  proportion  of 
workers  and  watchers  is  about  evenly  di- 
vided. Sometimes  these  English  take  it  into 
their  heads  to  hang  one  of  their  number. 
They  actually  spend  a  lifetime,  or  what 
would  fully  aggregate  a  long  lifetime,  in  tak- 
ing that  one  man's  life.  But  we  have  no 
bankers,  no  landlords,  no  brokers,  no  soldiers, 
no  jailers,  no  idlers  indeed  of  any  sort  set  to 
watch  ourselves.  So  you  see  we  have  to 
ourselves  all  the  time  that  God  and  a  genial 
clime  can  give.  And  this  answers,  in  some 
sort,  at  least,  your  first  inquiry. 

••  As  for  the  second,  our  law  and  order,  we 
found  that  here,  here  with  the  savages,  so- 


-i65- 

called.  It  is  true  they  had  only  the  germ  ; 
we  have  given  the  germ  growth.  They  had 
laid  the  keel  of  our  ship  of  State :  we  have 
helped  to  launch  it,  that  is  all.  You  see  the 
Indian  is  and  always  was,"  she  went  on, 
"  the  truest  and  most  perfect  communist.  All 
the  lands,  horses,  products  of  the  fields  and 
chase,  everything  but  the  bow  in  his  hand, 
was  as  much  the  property  of  his  brother  as 
himself.  And  so  there  was  no  stealinsf ; 
there  was  no  temptation  to  robbery  or  mur- 
der for  money  or  property.  With  this  mill- 
stone of  temptation  taken  from  about  a 
man's  neck,  see  how  tall  and  erect  he  would 
stand !  Take  away  the  temptation  to  lie 
from  the  clerk  who  sells  goods,  from  the 
grocery-man,  the  politician,  all  people,  in 
fact,  who  live  in  idleness  upon  the  toil  of 
others,  and  see  what  a  long  and  a  strong 
step  forward  man  has  made,  and  how  little 
friction  will  then  be  found  in  the  machine 
of  law  and  order.  We  have  conserved  all 
that  was  good  in  the  Indian's  life,  and  dis- 
carded that  which  was  outgrown.  We  have 
continued  the  common  ownership  of  nature's 
storehouse,  and  left  to  the  individual  the 
fruit  of  his  own  toil. 

"  And  now  as  to  the  third  object  of  your 
wonder,"  she  said.  "We  had,  as  you  well 
know,  long  contemplated  a  colony  in  Pales- 


—  i66  — 

tine,  but  we  finally  saw  that  this  would  be 
only  a  garden  for  the  thistles,  and  when  the 
crisis  came  we  were  quite  ready. 

••  I  had  at  hand  the  material  for  the  new 
order  of  things,  so  far  as  brave  hearts  and 
ready  hands  could  make  it.  All  we  had  to 
do  was  to  transfer  ourselves  to  the  spot 
where  we  were  to  set  up  our  tabernacle  of 
pure  worship,  like  the  Pilgrim  Fathers. 
True,  we  were  not  nearly  so  numerous  then 
as  now,  but  all  the  time  our  friends  have 
been  coming ;  and  now,  of  course,  since  all 
things  flourish  so  wonderfully,  they  will 
come  in  astonishing  numbers.  And  they 
will  be,  as  they  have  been  from  the  first,  of 
the  very  best,  —  men  and  women  who  believe 
in  man  and  his  glorious  destiny ;  men  and 
women  who  care  for  man,  and  are  content 
to  let  God  take  care  of  Himself;  men  and 
women  who  dare  not  presume  to  speak  for 
God,  but  keep  silent  and  let  Him  speak  for 
Himself ;  men  and  women  who  devoutly  adore 
all  that  is  good  and  beautiful,  —  lovers,  be- 
lievers ;  men  and  women  who  here  have  time 
to  meditate  and  see  more  clearly ;  men  and 
women  who  with  that  dignity  of  soul  which 
is  the  only  true  humility,  and  that  humility 
of  soul  which  is  the  only  true  dignity,  begin 
to  see,  and  to  say  lovingly,  one  to  another, 
'  The  infinite  God  is  "  the  aggregate  man."  '  " 


XXI. 

Man's  books  are  but  man's  alphabet ; 

Beyond  and  on  his  lessons  lie  — 
The  lessons  of  the  violet, 

The  large,  gold  letters  of  the  sky. 


o 


NE  day,  in  his  quiet  rounds  through  this 
new  Eden  on  earth,  and  when  quite  alone, 
he  came  upon  a  group  of  gray-haired  and 
serene  men  and  women  of  most  venerable 
aspect.  They  were  gathered  in  a  grove  by 
a  fountain  near  a  field  of  corn.  Not  far 
away  were  herds  of  cattle  ruminating  on  the 
sloping  brown  hills.  Farther  on  and  still 
up  toward  the  higher  land  were  flocks  of 
sheep,  white  and  restful  as  summer  clouds. 

As  he  approached  this  quiet  group  of  ven- 
erable people,  they,  rather  by  act  than  word, 
made  him  one  of  their  number,  and  he  sat 
down  in  silence  on  a  little  hillock  of  wild 
grass  in  the  shadow  of  a  broad  palm-tree. 

How  perfectly  serene,  how  entirely  satis- 
fied they  all  seemed  !  how  unlike  the  garru- 
lous and  nervous  and  never-satisfied  old 
women  of  the  social  world  in  the  great  cities 
in  which  he  had  dwelt,  were  these   tranquil 


—  i68  — 

and  serene  old  women  here !  They  were 
beautiful  women,  beautiful  in  body  as  in 
soul.  They  literally  made  man  in  love  with 
old  age,  even  before  they  had  opened  their 
lips  to  speak  in  their  low,^weet  fashion. 

And  these  benign  and  restful  men !  He 
began  to  recall  the  old  men,  old  beaux, 
roues,  whom  he  encountered  in  London, 
Paris,  Rome,  —  their  wrinkles,  powder,  paint ; 
their  terror  at  the  approaches  of  time ;  their 
dismay  at  the  thought  of  death  ;  their  lies, 
lies  on  their  lips,  lies  in  every  act  of  their 
lives,  their  lustful  lies  to  women,  —  their 
whole  foul  and  most  despicable  existence. 

'•  Ah  me  !  "  thought  he,  ''  why  may  a  man 
not  grow  in  grandeur  as  he  grows  in  years, 
like  the  mighty  trees  of  the  forest?  Is  a 
man  less  than  a  tree  ?  Shall  a  man  who  is 
made  in  God's  image  make  himself  less 
than  a  tree  ?  " 

*'  We  meet  here,  or  in  some  other  like 
pleasant  place,  daily,"  began  one  of  the  most 
venerable  men,  "  to  take  lessons.  We  are 
children  at  school,  you  see  ;  "  and  he  smiled 
pleasantly  on  the  group  of  gray  heads  under 
the  palms  round  about. 

'•  But  you  have  no  books." 

"  We  desire  thought  rather  than  books. 
If   Shakespeare  found  in  the  books  of  his 


—  169  — 

day  only  '  words,  words,  words,'  what  shall 
be  said  of  the  books  now  that  deluge  the 
earth  ?  " 

"  But  we  have  books  every  now  and  then 
that  gleam  like  lightning  through  a  cloud." 

"  Yes,  there  are  veins  of  gold  in  almost 
every  mountain,  glints  of  light  in  almost 
every  storm-cloud,  as  you  suggest ;  but  why 
have  the  storm  at  all  ?  Why  labor  with  the 
mountain  of  old  errors  or  take  light  from 
the  cloud,  when  the  world  is  all  light  if  we 
will  but  see  the  light  ?  " 

"  And  books  will  not  help  you  to  see  the 
light?" 

"  Hold  a  book  up  before  your  face  con- 
tinually, and  how  much  of  the  sun  can  you 
see  ? "  asked  the  old  man,  earnestly.  "  No, 
the  world  has  run  all  to  words,  as  a  luxu- 
riant garden  runs  to  weeds  in  the  autumn ; 
the  press,  the  pulpit  —  all  words,  words, 
words  !  "  said  the  old  man  finally. 

The  stranger  could  but  recall  the  protest 
of  Christ,  as  the  kindly  old  man  concluded 
and  was  silent.  He  remembered  that  endur- 
ing truths  have  been  born  in  the  desolate 
places ;  that  the  Ten  Commandments  came 
down  to  us  out  of  the  most  savage  moun- 
tain ever  seen;  that  Christ  grew  to  man- 
hood in  the  woods   of  Nazareth ;  that  the 


IJO 

Koran  was  written  on  storm-bleached  bones 
in  a  cave  ;  that  the  face  of  God  was  seen  in 
the  desert  only  of  old,  and  that  it  was  only 
to  a  houseless  boy  on  the  plains  of  Shinar, 
where  he  found  a  stone  for  a  pillow,  that 
the  ladder  of  heaven  was  let  down. 

"  The  one  main  duty  of  man  to  man  is  to 
convince  him  that  death  is  a  thing  not  to  be 
feared,  but,  in  its  ordinary  course,  to  be 
desired  above  all  things,"  said  the  master 
of  the  quiet  little  school ;  and  he  continued  : 
"  To  convince  him  of  this  he  must  be  con- 
vinced of  his  immortality.  He  must  not 
only  be  convinced  of  his  immortality,  but 
he  must  be  convinced  that  he  begins  life  in 
the  next  world  precisely  where  he  attains  to 
in  this ;  that  in  this  way,  and  this  way  only, 
is  it  possible  for  a  man  to  really  lay  up  treas- 
ures in  heaven.  And  to  convince  a  man 
of  his  immortality  and  of  the  preservation 
of  his  treasures  in  heaven  is  to  develop 
the  best  that  is  in  him  and  all  that  is  in  him. 
In  order  that  all  his  senses  may  be  devel- 
oped, he  must  return  to  nature  and  nature's 
God.  Why  should  the  silly  sheep  have 
sense  of  sight,  smell,  taste,  superior  to  our 
own  ?  Why  should  even  a  dog  be  able  to 
look  a  man  in  the  face,  or  smell  his  foot- 
prints, and  know  more  about  him  in  a  min- 


—  lyi  — 

ute  than  a  man  may  learn  in  a  year  ?  Not 
long  ago,  while  spending  the  night  among 
the  cattle,  so  that  I  might  learn  from  them, 
I  saw  some  rise  up  and  move  aside  and 
look,  as  if  they  saw  God  or  angels  pass ;  or 
as  if  Christ  had  come  again  to  companion 
with  the  beasts  of  the  stalls." 

The  master  was  silent  a  time ;  then,  as 
none  of  his  companions  spoke,  but  all 
seemed  inclined  to  listen  further,  he  went  on  : 

"  Thousands  of  years  ago,  we  know  man 
met  God  and  the  angels  face  to  face ;  but 
in  grasping  after  gains,  going  out  to  battle, 
cultivating  only  the  sense  of  acquisition  and 
of  destruction,  man  has  fallen  even  behind 
the  brute  in  the  finer  senses  of  vision  and 
apprehension  of  the  beautiful  and  good. 
But  here,  at  last,  after  all  the  ages  of  black- 
ness and  brutality,  man  finds  place  and  time 
to  sit  down  and  meditate  in  silence  and 
soberness,  and  to  live  by  the  precepts  of 
the  Sermon  on  the  Mount." 

He  again  rested,  and  waited  for  the  words 
of  others.  As  no  one  spoke,  the  master  said 
to  them  :  — 

"  You  do  well  to  meet  daily,  to  meditate 
continually  ;  for  never  had  man  such  respon- 
sibility ;  because  never  had  man,  since  that 
other  Eden,  such  opportunity.     You  do  well 


to  leave  behind  you  all  books,  the  drear}' 
histor)'  of  continuous  crimes  and  bloodshed 
on  the  one  hand,  and  the  wear)'  round  of 
lengthened  prayers  for  impossible  things  on 
the  other  hand.  You  have  a  right  to  be 
happy,  continually  happy,  as  you  are  here. 
Nay,  more;  I  assert  that  it  is  not  only  your 
right  to  be  happy,  but  it  is  your  duty  to  be 
happy ;  and  beyond  this  lies  the  boundless 
duty  to  the  world.  Let  us  follow  the  foot- 
prints of  Christ,  so  that  we  may  in  some 
fair  day  overtake  Christ,  and  then  will  the 
sad  and  weary  world  follow  in  our  footprints 
and  be  glad  and  be  good-  Let  us  cultivate 
our  senses  by  pure  and  peaceful  and  unselfish 
lives,  till  we  at  length  have  the  discernment  of 
dumb  brutes.  Let  us  teach  the  world  that 
if  it  will  only  lift  up  its  face  from  money- 
getting  on  earth  it  may  see  God  in  heaven." 


XXII. —  THE   TRULY    BRAVE. 

And  what  for  the  man  who  went  forth  for  the  right, 
Was  hit  in  the  battle  and  shorn  of  a  limb  ? 
Why,  honor  for  him  who  falls  in  the  fight, 
Falls  wounded  of  limb  and  crippled  for  life  ; 
Give  honor,  give  glory,  give  pensions  for  him. 
Give  bread  and  give  shelter  for  babes  and  for  wife. 

But  what  for  the  hero  who  battles  alone 
In  battles  of  thought  where  God  set  him  down  ; 
Who  fought  all  alone  and  who  fell  overthrown 
In  his  reason  at  last  from  the  hardness  and  hate  ? 
Why,  jibe  him  and  jeer  him  and  point  as  you  frown 
To  that  lowly,  lone  hero  who  dared  challenge  fate. 

God  pity,  God  pardon,  and  God  help  us  all ! 
"  That  young  man  of  promise,"  wherever  he  be, 
*'  That  young  man  of  promise,"  wherever  he  fall,  — 
For  fall,  he  must  fall,  't  is  a  thousand  to  one,  — 
Let  us  plant  him  a  rose;  let  us  plant  a  great  tree 
To  hide  his  poor  grave  from  the  world  and  the  sun. 

I  tell  you  't  were  better  to  cherish  that  soul  — 
That  soldier  that  battles  with  thought  for  a  sword. 
That  climbs  the  steep  ramparts  where  wrong  has  con- 
trol, 
And  falls  beaten  back  by  the  rude,  trampling  horde. 
Ay,  better  to  cherish  his  words  and  his  worth 
Than  all  the  Napoleons  that  people  the  earth. 

1  AM  going  to  the  hospital  before  break- 
fast to-morrow ;  it  lies  some  forty  miles  out 
in  the  mountains.  We  go  by  electric  train. 
Will  you  go?" 


—  174  — 

''  Gladly." 

"  But  ah,"  and  here  she  was  sad  and 
thoughtful,  '-this  is  a  sad  case  I  am  going 
out  to  look  after.  The  woman  is  a  friend  of 
mine,  a  princess  by  birth,  and  when  in  the 
world,  the  struggling  world,  as  you  know  it, 
she  was  always  very  ambitious  of  distinction. 
Thinking  herself  cured  of  that,  or  rather 
hoping  to  become  quite  cured  of  it  here,  she 
came  to  me  only  a  year  ago.  But  alas !  In 
less  than  a  year  after  her  arrival  she  grew 
again  ambitious,  and,  desiring  a  high  place 
as  director,  she  grew  so  desperate  as  to  tell 
a  falsehood  to  some  others,  who,  like  herself, 
had  newly  come  and  had  not  yet  grown 
strong." 

"  And  she  was  detected  .'* " 

"  Oh,  no,  not  detected ;  not  nearly  so  bad 
as  that.  She  came  and  told  me  the  next 
day ;  and  she  then  went  and  told  all  to 
whom  she  had  talked ;  and  when  the  court 
sat  in  judgment  she  stood  up  and  made  pub- 
lic c  -I.  Then  she  condemned  her- 
self I-    spitalfor  half  a  year.     I  begged 

the  judge  that  she  should  not  be  permitted 
to  sentence  herself  so  severely ;  but  the 
judge  thought  the  punishment  none  too  hard, 
and  so  let  her  go  to  the  hospital  the  full 
time  for  which  she  had  sentenced  herself." 


—  175  — 

"  For  which  she  had  sentenced  herself  ?  " 
"  Yes.  You  see  our  hospital  here  for 
mental  maladies  and  physical  ailments  is 
the  same.  We  try  to  be  even  more  gentle 
with  those  who  have  maladies  of  the  mind 
than  those  who  have  ailments  of  the  body ; 
for  a  man  may  lose  a  limb  and  yet,  if  his 
mind  is  clear,  he  does  not  suffer  nearly  so 
much  as  one  with  an  afflicted  mind.  Be- 
sides, a  mental  ailment,  rare  with  us,  fortu- 
nately, is  much  more  subtle  and  hard  to 
master  than  a  physical  one.  Take  this  case 
for  example.  For  generations  back,  her 
family,  a  most  noble  Polish  one,  had  been 
bitterly  impoverished;  and  you  can  easily 
see  how  with  their  pride  and  poverty  to- 
gether they  transmitted  their  misery  to  this 
poor  friend  of  mine  who  is  now  serving  out 
her  time  in  the  hospital." 

He  found  the  "hospital"  a  sort  of  summer 
watering  place;  not  a  Newport  or  a  Sara- 
toga, however.  It  was  a  Christian  place, 
not  noisy  in  the  least  nor  devoted  to  any 
sort  of  folly  to  attract  attention.  All  the 
invalids,  mental  or  physical,  from  down  in 
the  valley  were  here.  The  new  mothers 
were  in  a  similar  retreat  further  on.  He 
found  many  people  coming  and  going,  these 
fragrant  pine  groves  being  cooler  and  the 


—  I  76  — 

air  more  invigorating  than  in  the  great  valley 
below.  All  the  mental  sick,  "  convicts  "  we 
call  them  in  Christian  lands,  kept  themselves 
at  some  sort  of  work  in  attending  on  the 
physical  sick.  And  yet  the  numerous  visi- 
tors kept  heaping  attention  on  the  "con- 
victs ; "  more  attention,  indeed,  did  they 
receive  than  those  who  had  only  bodily 
ailments. 

He  was  so  enchanted  with  the  humanity, 
the  heart,  the  real  Christianity  in  all  he  saw 
here,  that  his  whole  soul  was  filled  with 
exultation  at  the  possibilities  of  the  future. 

"  Vou  will  have  a  city  here,  such  a  city, 
in  magnitude  and  glor)-,  as  the  world  has 
never  seen,"  he  said,  as  they  walked  the 
hospital  grounds  together. 

Pausing  for  a  moment,  she  raised  her 
head  and  answered,  "It  is  possible.  But 
cities,  great  cities,  as  a  rule,  should  not  be." 
Then  she  said,  after  a  moment's  silence, 
"True,  we  must  have  centres.  Each  divi- 
sion of  the  earth,  natural  or  artificial,  great 
or  small,  must  have  a  common  centre,  a 
heart.  The  hands,  the  feet,  all  have  their 
functions  and  they  all  have  laws  of  health  ; 
but  with  the  means  of  transportation  with- 
out cost  within  the  reach  of  all,  great  cities 
will  not  be  built.     Population  in  the  outside 


—  177  — 

world  is  growing  denser  because  of  the 
greed  of  landlords  and  the  folly  of  granting 
railway  privileges,  which  makes  transporta- 
tion difficult.  With  our  rapid  free  transit, 
our  railways  supported  out  of  the  rental 
value  of  our  land,  we  keep  our  city  like  a 
garden,  as  you  see.  No,  I  would  sweep 
great  cities,  like  New  York  and  London, 
from  the  face  of  the  earth.  We  know  that 
sword  and  flood  and  flame  have  been  against 
cities  from  the  first  dawn  of  history.  Pesti- 
lence, the  very  hand  of  God,  has  ever  been 
turned  against  all  great  cities.  Children  die 
in  cities,  men  and  women  are  dwarfed  in 
cities.  No  great  man  has  ever  yet  been 
born  in  a  great  city.  A  city  is  a  sin  and 
a  shame,  a  crime  against  the  human  race. 
Each  man  must  have  his  acre,  his  vine  and 
figtree,  his  place  of  retreat,  his  grove,  his 
temple,  his  shrine  where  he  may  pray,  may 
meditate,  may  be  all  himself." 

In  the  cool  of  the  evening  they  took  the 
cars  for  the  city. 

"  As  time  goes  by,"  said  the  good  angel 
on  their  descent  to  the  city,  "  we  shall  have 
much  less  mental  sickness.  Take  for  ex- 
ample this  poor  friend  of  mine,  who,  happily, 
is  now  about  to  be  restored  to  us  entirely 
healed.     Had  she,  and  her  ancestors  as  well, 

12 


-I7S- 

been  born  and  reared  in  these  restful  ways, 
no  such  sickness  would  ever  have  overtaken 
her.  As  for  bodily  sickness,  that  is  partly 
our  own  fault ;  but  death,  all  know,  is  not 
to  be  avoided  and  should  not  be  undesired. 
Yet  I  surely  think  that  mental  sickness  can 
be  swept  from  the  earth.  You  remember 
the  poor  nude  idiots  who  used  to  swim  out 
to  us  every  few  days  as  we  sailed  up  the 
Nile  ?  They  call  these  poor  creatures  God's 
people  there,  you  remember,  and  the  boat- 
men feed  them  and  care  for  them  as  best 
they  can.  We,  that  is,  civilized  Europe  and 
America,  lock  them  up  !  Out  here  we  hope 
to  go  back  to  first  causes  and  help  nature  to 
make  the  crooked  straight. 

"  And  bodily  illness,"  she  continued,  "  is 
not  to  be  wondered  at  when  we  consider 
what  man  has  done,  and  is  still  doing  in 
most  of  the  world,  to  destroy  himself.  Look 
at  France!  Russia!  Sixteen  hours  of  toil 
in  all  sorts  of  weather,  and  such  food  !  food 
that  is  >^  'fit  for  wild  beasts.     Still  man 

must  ha.   ise  if  he  would  have  a  healthy 

body.  I  observed,  when  in  prison  with  my 
poor  father,  that  all  who  were  confined  es- 
teemed a  few  hours  of  exercise  in  the  op>en 
air  above  their  bread.  Ever)'  man,  as  a 
rule,  who  is  shut  up  in  prison,  spends  from 


—  179  — 

four  to  ten  hours  daily  in  pacing  up  and 
down.  So  it  became  clear  to  me  that  man's 
body  demanded  at  least  six  hours  of  exer- 
cise. Less  than  this  would  be  fatal  to  his 
health.  A  great  excess  of  this  would  weary 
him,  tax  him  too  heavily,  and  so  leave  a 
loophole  by  which  disease  might  enter.  Now 
we  find  here  that  two  hours  of  work  in  the 
fields  and  gardens  by  each  man  will  more 
than  feed  his  family.  This  amazes  you,  I 
know." 

"  He  may  work  twenty-four  hours  in  a 
week,  twenty-four  days  of  a  European 
laborer's  work  in  a  whole  year  and  have  all 
the  rest  of  the  year  for  study,  for  art,  for 
development  ?  "  asked  the  man. 

"  If  he  does  that  work  daily,  yes.  But  we 
allow  no  taskmasters  here ;  all  is  voluntary. 
After  each  day  of  public  work  a  man  goes 
back  to  his  house,  among  his  bees,  birds, 
roses,  vines,  with  his  children,  and  all  the 
other  delightful  things  that  go  to  refresh 
mind  and  body  and  make  interesting  the 
spot  he  has  set  apart  as  his  home." 

Shortly  after  this  delightful  day,  as  the 
weather  grew  warmer  in  the  city,  they  once 
more  visited  the  pleasant  and  refreshing 
pines  on  the  mountain-side.  And  here  they 
walked  and  they  talked  as  before. 


—  i8o  — 

"  Would  you  care  to  walk  a  little  further 
on  among  the  pines  ?  " 

She  said  this  seriously,  looking  in  his  face 
m  a  quiet  and  inquiring  way,  and  for  an- 
swer he  moved  on  at  her  side  in  silence. 

Half  an  hour,  up  the  hill  and  over  the  hill, 
through  the  tall,  open  pines,  and  he  saw 
before  them,  in  a  wooded  depression  of  the 
landscape  through  which  a  little  mountain 
stream  wound  in  the  long,  strong  grass,  a 
few  scattering  graves  where  roses  grew  in 
careless  profusion.  Some  deer  were  feeding 
on  the  slope  of  the  hill  a  little  beyond,  and 
beyond  these,  higher  on  the  sloping  hill 
where  the  pines  stood  dark  and  dense,  he 
saw  what  at  first  seemed  to  be  several  large, 
old-fashioned  marble  tombs. 

"  No,  they  are  not  tombs,"  she  said  softly. 
"  These  are  simply  heaps  of  sweet-smel- 
ling pine  wood  kept  ready  for  men  and 
women  of  advanced  thought  whom  we  have 
among  us." 

"  Funeral  pyres  ?  " 

"  Even  so.  You  will  understand  that  here 
with  us  in  this  new  order  of  things  there  is 
nothing  arbitrary.  Minds  have  different 
degrees  of  development.  Some  have  as- 
cended high,  some  higher  still ;  while  many 
of  us  still  stand  at  the  bottom  of  the  hill  and 


I«l 


see  the  plain  of  life  only  from  the  dead  level 
of  custom.  And  so  each  looks  at  life,  and 
death  also,  from  his  or  her  own  standpoint. 
Some  of  us  still  want  priests  to  lean  upon ; 
some  of  us  still  at  times  are  weak  enough  to 
want  to  worship  idols  or  even  the  golden 
calf;  and  so,  equal  freedom  is  accorded  all, 
for  out  of  freedom  will  come  real  develop- 
ment, and  every  secure  step  upward  must  be 
of  gradual  ascent ;  because  there  is  danger 
of  the  weak  growing  weary  and  of  faltering 
by  the  way  or  turning  back. 

"  Ah,  I  see,"  he  said.  "  Here  conspic- 
uously in  the  front  are  the  graves  of  those 
who  claim  attention  even  in  the  tomb." 

"  That  is  it,"  she  sadly  answered,  as  she 
looked  about  and  on  up  the  hill  beyond  into 
the  deep,  dark  shadows.  But  up  yonder,  in 
the  silence  and  obscurity,  the  remains  of 
those  who  have  outgrown  such  folly,  like 
Charles  Dickens,  Lord  Houghton,  and  others 
who  begged  for  simple  burial,  are  laid  on 
the  fragrant  wood  as  soon  as  may  be  after 
the  breath  has  left  the  body,  in  the  same 
garments,  in  the  garments  in  which  death 
finds  them.  A  flash,  a  flame ;  and  they  are 
of  the  clouds  and  ashes." 


XXIII.  —  GOING. 

What  if  we  all  lay  dead  below  ; 

Lay  as  the  grass  lies,  cold  and  dead 
In  God's  own  holy  shroud  of  snow, 

With  snow-white  stones  at  foot  and  head, 
With  all  earth  dead  and  shrouded  white 

As  cloucU  that  cross  the  moon  at  night? 

What  if  that  infidel  some  night 
Could  then  rise  up  and  see  how  dead, 

How  wholly  dead  and  out  of  sight 

All  things  with  snows  sown  foot  and  head 

And  lost  wind')  wailing  up  and  down 

The  emptied  field:^  and  emptied  town  ? 

I  think  that  grand  old  infidel 

Would  rub  his  hands  with  fiendish  glee, 
And  say,  "  I  knew  it,  knew  it  well  ! 

I  knew  that  death  was  destiny ; 
I  ate,  I  drank,  I  mocked  at  God, 
Then  as  the  grass  was,  and  the  sod." 

Ah  me,  the  grasses  and  the  sod, 
They  are  my  preachers.    Hear  them  preach 

When  they  forget  the  shroud,  and  G<xl 
Lilts  up  these  blades  of  grass  to  teach 

The  r-  .  !     Who  shall  say 

What  .  a  speak  as  they  ? 

W  EARLY  half  a  year  had  swept  by. 

"  You  are  thinking  of  going  away,"  she 
said,  as  they  walked  together  by  the  great 
fountain  that  burst  up  from  the  old  Toltec 


-i83- 

ruins  near  her  door ;  for  she  was  not  strong 
enough  to  walk  further  now.  It  was  in  the 
afternoon. 

"  You  knew  my  thoughts,  then  ?  " 

"  You  are  going  away  if  —  if  I  go." 

"Yes." 

"  I  will  go  with  you."  She  said  this,  not 
sadly,  but  almost  cheerfully,  as  she  leaned 
heavily  on  his  arm  on  turning  to  her  door. 

There  were  those  here  who  made  one  in 
love  with  old  age :  but  this  woman  was 
making  him  in  love  with  death. 

"  You  are  going  back  to  the  work  that  is 
before  you !  I  will  go  with  you."  And  that 
is  all  she  said  about  his  going  or  staying; 
but  he  felt  that  it  was  her  desire  that  he 
should  go. 

"  I  know  so  many  weak  and  weary  peo- 
ple who  would  be  glad  to  come  to  this 
Paradise,"  he  said.  "As  for  myself,  I  am 
strong  now.  I  will  go  back  to  my  work,  but 
shall  I  not  be  permitted  to  send  some  whom 
I  know,  out  of  the  shadow,  to  this  fervid 
sunlight  of  yours  ?  " 

She  raised  her  hand  with  effort,  and, 
pointing  to  some  pale  weeds  that  grew  in  a 
dark  and  shaded  corner  beneath  the  broad 
banana-leaves,  she  bade  him,  more  by  sign 
than  word,   to  pull  them  from   the  ground 


—  184  — 

and  lay  them  before  her  in  the  sun.  He  did 
so,  and  they  laid  their  drooping  heads  down 
on  the  hot  sands  and  died. 

'•  Vou  see,"  she  said;  "and  yet  our 
choicest  flowers  are  only  cultivated  weeds. 
Pull  them  up  and  place  them  in  the  sun  sud- 
denly, and  you  do  not  help  them  ;  you  simply 
kill  them.  It  is  well  to  have  great  examples 
like  this,  our  City  Beautiful,  but  the  world 
must  improve  itself  slowly,  naturally,  by 
force  of  the  example  we  have  set  of  freedom, 
truth,  and  justice.  No,  we  must  have  strong 
pillars,  like  the  Pilgrim  Fathers,  and,  God 
willing,  we  shall  have  a  temple  reared  in 
time  that  will  shelter  all.  Our  example  will 
uplift  the  world." 

She  rested  for  a  long  time  now.  Finally 
she  said,  "  You  will  go  up  to  the  hospital  and 
remain  —  remain  until  you  see  a  sign." 

He  bowed  silently  in  assent ;  for  she  was 
too  near  the  other  world  for  him  to  ques- 
tion now  or  make  any  protest.  Then  she 
said :  — 

"  I  like  those  people  up  there ;  I  like  the 
guilty  ones,  those  whom  you  call  convicts ; 
but  we  do  not  call  them  that.  Why,  when 
one  of  your  poor,  unfortunate  people  is  ac- 
cused of  crime,  the  State,  the  State's 
attorney,  the  whole  power  of  the  State  is 


-i85- 

exerted,  and  no  pains  or  money  spared  to 
prove  that  man  guilty,  —  as  if  it  were  a  good 
thing  for  the  State  to  have  a  guilty  man  ! 
Ah,  how  you  forget  that  'it  is  better  that 
ten  guilty  ones  escape  than  that  one  innocent 
man  should  suffer.' " 

She  was  exhausted  now  and  breathed  with 
effort.  Yet  it  seemed  as  if  with  her  last 
breath  she  must  teach  this  most  important 
lesson.     After  a  time  she  added  :  — 

"What  a  pity  that  all  the  State  should 
array  itself  against  one  man,  bound  in  irons, 
in  an  iron  tomb,  as  if  it  were  a  glorious  thing 
for  the  State  to  find  one  of  its  people  with 
mind  so  weak  or  morals  so  weak  that  he  fell 
into  the  pit  of  temptation."  She  was  silent 
a  long  time,  then  said  :  — 

"  You  will  go  now.  Good-by  again ;  good- 
by!" 

He  arose  and  stood  before  her.  He  fell 
on  his  knees  and  took  her  hand.  "  You  feel 
certain,  confident,  confident  that  Christ  is  the 
Saviour  of  the  world  ?  "  he  cried  ;  for  he  felt 
that  she  was  surely  dying. 

Steadily,  and  with  a  strange  light  in  her 
eyes,  as  if  it  might  be  the  light  of  another 
world,  she  looked  him  long  and  silently  in 
the  face.  Then  she  said  slowly  and  in  a 
voice  so  soft  and  low  :  — 


—  i86  — 

"  Yes,  yes,  Jesus  Christ  is  the  Saviour  of 
the  world;  but  Jesus  Christ  died  to  save  man 
from  man,  —  not  to  save  man  from  God." 

He  kissed  her  hand  tenderly  in  silence,  and 
in  tears  passed  out. 


XXIV. —PUT   UP   THY   SWORD. 

And  who  the  bravest  of  the  brave ; 

The  bravest  hero  ever  born  ? 
'Twas  one  who  dared  a  felon's  grave, 

Who  dared  to  bear  the  scorn  of  scorn. 
Nay,  more  than  this  ;  when  sword  was  drawn 

And  vengeance  waited  for  His  word. 
He  looked  with  pitying  eyes  upon 

The  scene,  and  said,  "  Put  up  thy  sword." 
Oh  God !  could  man  be  found  to-day 
As  brave  to  do,  as  brave  to  say  ? 

"  Put  up  thy  sword  into  its  sheath." 

Put  up  thy  sword,  put  up  thy  sword ! 
By  Cedron's  brook  thus  spake  beneath 

The  olive-trees  our  valiant  Lord, 
Spake  calm  and  king-like.     Sword  and  stave 

And  torch,  and  stormy  men  of  death 
Made  clamor.     Yet  He  spake  not,  save 

With  loving  word  and  patient  breath, 
The  peaceful  olive-boughs  beneath, 
"  Put  up  thy  sword  within  its  sheath." 

xi BASHED  that  he  had  remained  so 
long,  knowing  as  he  did  that  this  inspired 
soul  was  about  to  enter  upon  another  life, 
the  man  hastened  to  take  the  first  convey- 
ance to  the  mountains  of  pine. 

•'  You  will  remain  there  till  you  see  a 
sign."  He  kept  saying  this  as  he  went  his 
way  speaking  to  no  one.  He  had  been  with 
her.     His   soul,  his  whole  self,  this  day  at 


1 88 


least,  must  be  his  own  and  inviolate.  He 
did  not  go  directly  to  the  hospital,  to  men, 
but  to  the  woods,  to  God. 

Some  scarlet  berries,  red  with  the  blood 
of  the  dying  autumn,  wreathed  the  moss- 
made  tomb  of  a  prone  monarch  of  the  moun- 
tains, on  which  he  sat.  All  was  silent,  so 
silent,  save  a  far,  faint  melody  that  came  up 
the  mountain-side  through  the  pines,  came 
fitfully  on  the  wind,  as  one  that  is  weary  and 
would  go  home  to  rest. 

The  tawny  carpet  of  pine  quills  grew 
golden  as  the  sun  lay  level  and  in  spars  and 
bars  and  beams  about  him.  The  huge  and 
lofty  trunks  of  the  mighty  pine-trees  on  the 
mountains  round  about  took  on  a  hue  of 
gold  as  the  sun  fell  down.  The  foliage  all 
about  grew  red,  then  gold,  then  yellow.  The 
carpet  of  pine  quills,  reaching  miles  and 
miles  away  on  either  hand  and  far  up  the 
mountains  beyond,  became  gold,  a  broken, 
billowy  sea  of  molten  gold.  And  as  he  sat 
there,  throned  amid  this  mobile  sea  of  fra- 
grant yellow,  of  color  so  perfect  that  it  was 
not  only  color  but  form,  form,  perfume  and 
melody  also,  he  not  only  saw  this  color,  he 
heard  it.     An  hour  passed. 

Then  suddenly^  as  he  thought  of  her,  he 
saw  a  form,   the  yellow  form   and  comely 


—  189  — 

shape  of  a  desert  lion  sta7iding,  waiting, 
removed  from  hi7n  but  by  a  little  space. 

And  even  as  he  looked,  the  sinking  sun 
came  softly  through  the  forest  boughs,  a  long, 
slanting  shaft  of  light,  and  laid  a  red  sword 
at  his  feet. 

Day  had  surrendered  to  night,  light  to 
darkness,  mortality  to  immortality. 

He  remained  alone  all  night  in  the  warm 
woods,  but  saw  no  further  sign.  It  was 
enough. 

With  the  dawn  there  came  up  the  moun- 
tain-side the  sweetest,  saddest  melodies  ever 
known.     It  was  the  funeral  train. 

He  took  an  old  man  aside.  They  rested 
a  time  beneath  the  pines.  He  implored  him 
to  tell  all,  all.  "  What  did  she  say  ?  What 
did  she  do  ?  All,  all,  —  tell  me  all !  "  But 
the  old  man  seemed  dazed.  He  kept  silent 
for  some  time.     At  last  he  spoke. 

"  I  went  to  her  immediately  as  you  left 
her.  I  can  hardly  recall  her  words.  They 
were  words  of  fire  and  gold.  '  Prove  to  me, 
to  the  world,  that  man  shall  surely  rise,'  I 
cried.  She  half  turned  away  her  face  as  in 
reproach  at  first,  but  soon,  looking  tenderly 
at  me,  she  said  in  a  low,  firm  voice,  'Nay,  I 
cannot  quite  prove  to  you  that  man  shall 


—  igo  — 

rise  after  death.  I  cannot  quite  prove  to 
you  that  yonder  setting  sun  will  rise  to-mor- 
row ;  but  I  surely,  surely  believe  it  will  rise  ; ' 
and  then  she  made  a  sign  that  I  must  leave 
her  to  meet  God  alone.  After  a  little  time 
young  musicians  came  as  had  been  their 
custom,  and  played  before  her  door  under 
the  palm-trees.  And  then  there  came  many 
singers,  and  they  sang,  sang  as  the  musicians 
played,  and  the  sun  went  down.  Then  sud- 
denly we  heard  her  voice,  like  a  thread  of 
gold  in  the  woof  of  harmony,  woven  in  with 
a  most  cunning  hand.  We  had  never  heard 
her  sing  before.  It  was,  perhaps,  her  first 
as  it  was  her  last  song. 

"  There  are  many  birds  and  of  many  hues, 
as  you  well  know,  in  the  foliage  of  the  court 
there.  Well,  as  the  song  ceased  and  the 
music  died  away,  an  old  man,  older  and 
better  than  I,  and  so  able  to  see  more  of 
better  things  than  I  can  see,  saw  a  bird,  a 
wide-winged  bird,  and  white  like  snow.  And 
after  circling  above  our  heads,  it  flew  out 
through  the  wide,  high  trees  into  the  falling 
night.  That  was  all.  We  bowed  low  our 
heads  and  wept  in  pit}'  for  ourselves." 

Remembering  having  heard  her  deplore 
the  sad  habit  of  the  world  in  staring  at  the 
wan,  worn   faces  of  the   helpless  dead,  he 


—  191  — 

overcame  this  last  desire,  as  he  had  over- 
come others  through  her  teachings  and 
example,  and  saw  her  face  of  clay  never 
more. 

And  yet  he  felt,  knew,  knew  positively  all 
the  while,  that  she  would  come  to  him,  sooner 
or  later,  if  he  only  kept  his  soul  refined  and 
fit  to  see  her ;  and  more  than  that,  he  knew 
that  she  would  come  to  him  in  her  perfec- 
tion, as  she  was  when  she  touched  the  high- 
tide  mark  of  health  and  perfection  of  form 
and  face  ;  for  this  is  in  the  order  of  nature. 
The  tide  shall  touch  its  topmost  limit.  The 
human  soul  shall  not  be  less  than  the  sea. 

Knowing  all  this,  knowing  that  she  would 
have  given  back  to  her  all  that  had  been 
taken  away,  and  that  she,  and  all  others  who 
love  sincerity,  would  begin  the  next  life  at 
the  high-tide  mark  in  this,  and  knowing, 
surely  knowing  that  he  should  see  her  thus, 
how  careful  was  he  to  say  naught,  do  naught 
that  would  make  him  less  worthy  to  lift  his 
face  to  hers. 

They  bore  her  form  up,  up  to  her  moun- 
tain-side, mantled  close  in  the  robes  in  which 
she  died,  and  none  were  cruel  enough  to 
seek  to  look  into  her  tired  face. 

There  was  a  depression  in  the  great  heap 


102  

of  sweet-smelling  pine  that  lay  farthest  up 
the  hill  beyond  the  hospital,  and  here  they 
laid  the  body. 

A  flame,  a  long,  vapor)'  cloud  of  smoke 
tossing  to  the  pine  tops,  and  all  turned 
away.  No  more  cost  and  no  more  care,  —  a 
little  heap  of  ashes  !  and  around  the  edges 
of  this  little  burned  spot  tall,  slim  grasses 
came  to  stand  in  circle  soon,  and  shy,  wild 
flowers  joined  their  hands  and  drooped  their 
heads  there  tearfully  when  the  rains  had 
come. 

"  So  you  are  going  away  to-night  ?  Well, 
the  Gulf  Stream  of  the  upper  seas  is  reversed 
at  this  season.  The  Japan  currents  flow 
towards  us  in  the  first  few  months,  but  later 
in  the  year,  as  now,  Alaska  draws  on  us  for 
heat  and  things  are  reversed.  You  will  have 
quite  as  pleasant  sailing  back  as  when  you 
came." 

This  was  the  venerable  man  who  had  seen 
the  cattle  rise  up  in  the  fields  at  night,  as  if 
God  was  walking  by.  So  fine  were  his 
senses  that  he  had  only  to  come  into  your 
atmosphere  to  know  your  thought.  They 
were  walking  up  the  mountain.  Without 
a  word  the  man  lifted  his  eyes.  The  car 
of   the   air-ship   swung  graceful    as   a   pine 


—  193  — 

cone  in  the  gathering  wind  at  the  high  plat- 
form from  which  he  had  descended  on  com- 
ing to  the  place.  They  passed  up  together 
in  silence.  What  need  of  words  at  such  a 
time? 

Grasping  the  old  man's  hand,  he  stepped 
within  the  car  and  was  about  taking  his 
seat  when,  with  a  boom  as  if  being  propelled 
by  sound,  the  car  bounded  away  above  the 
clouds  and  held  her  course  strong  and  steady 
toward  the  north. 

He  sank  into  his  seat,  bowed  his  head,  and 
moaned,  "  She  said  she  would  be  with  me !  " 

After  a  time  he  lifted  his  face,  for  he  felt 
that  he  was  not  alone,  and  lo !  there  she  sat 
before  him,  in  all  the  splendor  of  youth  and 
strength  and  divinity  of  presence.  All  the 
majesty  of  perfect  womanhood  was  with  her 
now.  Never,  indeed,  had  he  seen  her  so 
radiantly,  so  imperiously  beautiful.  The 
same  sweet  touch  of  tenderness,  the  same 
pathos  and  pity  in  the  Madonna  face,  it  is 
true ;  but  over  and  above  this  there  was  a 
sense  of  strength  and  directness  and  immor- 
tality, such  as  you  feel  when  the  sun  is 
rising. 

She  did  not  speak;    for  oh,  how  futile, 
lame,  harsh,  and  angular  are  words !    The  use 
of  words  shall  pass  away,  is  passing. 
13 


—  194  — 

Why,  know  you  not  soul  speaks  to  soul  ? 
I  say  the  use  of  words  shall  pass  — 
Words  are  but  fragments  of  the  glass, 

But  silence  is  the  perfect  whole. 

She  did  not  speak  but  her  soul  continually 
said  to  his  soul,  ••  The  kingdom  of  heaven  is 
at  hand."  And  it  was  said  as  if  in  a  great 
court  of  woods  and  falling  waters,  with  walls 
of  sapphire,  where  hung,  in  letters  of  fire  and 
gold,  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  and  the 
Lord's  Prayer. 

He  did  not  mistake  their  meaning.  He 
would  go  forward  and  these  should  guide 
him  still.  All  Israel  was  forty  years  in  the 
wilderness,  and  he  had  been  but  five.  Surely 
he  should,  he  could,  and  he  would  gather 
strength  and  go  forward.  For  she  had  anni- 
hilated the  vast  space  that  had  been  so  long 
between  heaven  and  earth  and  had  brought 
them  almost  together — "The  kingdom  of 
heaven  is  at  hand." 

She  did  not  speak  ;  and  yet  her  soul  spoke 
as  certainly  in  its  calm,  sweet  fashion,  wisely, 
silently ;  the  wisdom  of  earth  in  earthly 
things,  the  glorj-,  the  beauty,  the  peace  of 
heaven  over  all. 

"  I  leave  my  peace  with  you."  "  The 
kingdom  of  heaven  is  at  hand." 

And  her  soul  said  to  his  soul,  "  Service  is 


—  195^ 

the  handmaiden  of  heaven.  Let  the  Chris- 
tian run  forward  with  the  Sermon  on  the 
Mount  in  hand,  swift-footed  to  meet  her. 
Only  see  to  it  that  the  newly  emancipated 
slave  does  not  fall  into  a  deeper  servitude. 
For  man,  intoxicated  with  opportunity,  still 
believes  that  opulence  is  happiness.  They 
are  fastening  again  the  broken  chains,  and 
gathering  gold  as  never  was  gold  gathered 
before. 

"  It  was  the  toiler,  not  the  money-changer, 
who  taught  the  lightnings  to  talk,  created 
light  out  of  space,  and  from  the  airy,  white 
vapors  of  heaven  called  into  existence  the 
thundering  black  cavalry  of  commerce  by 
land  and  by  sea.  Take  care  that  this  eman- 
cipated toiler  is  not  made  the  slave  of  his 
own  creations  by  blind,  intoxicated  money- 
changers. See  to  it  that  all  toil,  that  none 
but  the  helpless  live  on  the  toil  of  others." 

Such  were  the  woman's  thoughts,  words, 
as  they  seemed  to  sail  and  sail  by  the  porch 
of  heaven  above  the  clouds  as  before.  Then 
they  passed  down,  down  and  through  the 
clouds,  and  it  was  almost  light. 

And  daring  to  look  full  in  her  face  by  the 
coming  light  he  saw  a  star,  then  the  star 
only,  the  bright  and  beautiful  morning  star 
to  the  east,  through  the  dove-colored  leaves 
of  his  olive-trees. 


—  196  — 

And  he  arose  and  went  to  his  toil  with 
content  and  courage  and  a  broad,  deep 
charity  in  his  heart.  A  dove  sang  from  an 
olive-tree,  the  dove  and  the  olive-branch  as 
of  old,  and  the  man  sang  with  the  dove  that 
day  of  all  days.  For  had  he  not  seen  her  ? 
Whether  she  was  of  heaven  or  of  earth,  who 
should  say  ?  But  surely  he  had  been  with 
her  entirely,  and  this  was  the  unuttered  song 
of  his  heart.  He  sang  silently,  for  what  hu- 
man voice  can  approach  the  plaintive  and 
tender  voice  of  the  dove  ?  But  here  is  the 
song  of  his  heart : 

Come  listen,  O  love,  to  the  voice  of  the  dove, 
Come  hearken  and  hear  him  say, 

•'  There  are  many  tomorrows,  my  love,  my  love, 
There  is  only  one  to-day." 

And  all  day  long  I  can  hear  him  say, 

"  This  day  in  purple  is  rolled ; 
And  the  baby  stars  of  the  Milky  Way, 

They  are  cradled  in  cradles  of  gold." 


^     Jintfi     .i< 


HERE    ENDETH    THE    BOOK    OF    THE 
BUILDING  OF  THE  CITY   BEAUTI- 
FUL,  WHICH   WAS    PRINTED 
BY  JOHN  WILSON  &  SON 
IN   NOVEMBER  FOR 

STONE    &    KIMBALL 

|J<    CAMBRIDGE    AND    CHICAGO    >J« 

MDCCCXCIII 


•^At   V 


>.      ^     3 


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